m^mmm. 








-mmm§ 



■ 










■■■■•■ 

■■:■-'.■:' '.■;;■■: ;-;-i" ■-...'..: ■. — . ;„: 







Glass J3EZ£3/_ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/bookofpsychicsocOOshaf 



BOOK OF THE 

PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

A STUDY OF THE 
UNSEEN POWERS 

THAT SURROUND HUMAN LIFE 
Based on Fixed Natural Laws 



EDITED BY 

EDMUND SHAFTESBURY 

AND THE 
COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIETY 



PUBLISHED BY 

RALSTON COMPANY 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 
1907 



[LIBRARY of CONGRESS 

Two Copies Rsceived 

DEC 20 1907 

Oopyrie»l entry 

CLASS A, XXc. Wo. 

COPY Bv 



& 



^0 \ 



Copyright, 1907 

BY 

RALSTON COMPANY 



All Rights Reserved 



Befcication. 



To the hundreds of men and women who 
have pursued the study of Shaftesbury philos- 
ophy, the thousands who have ascended the 
heights by the aid of Universal Magnetism, and 
the hundreds of thousands who are now engaged 
in the lesser courses of training along these 
lines, this new work is 

Hffectionatel^ DefcicateD, 



A PERSONAL NOTE. 

BY SHAFTESBURY. 

So rapid have been the strides of discovery in the past 
few years along the lines of the present work that un- 
stinted praise awaits the men who have done faithful serv- 
ice in the rich fields of investigation. 

In view of this fact the one man who happens to be 
chosen to place in his own words the account of the labors 
that have been performed, is likely to be credited with much 
more of the success than he deserves. If it were true that 
he had done all the work, or half of it, or a large minority 
of it, he might be willing to take a liberal share of the good 
will of his readers. 

The fact is, it has required the aid of hundreds of the 
most persevering investigators to bring about the truth. 
Many of them have been men of great learning and re- 
search. Others have been duly equipped for keen observa- 
tion and the sifting of a mass of details in the effort to find 
the germ of actuality. Even the legal fraternity has had 
a liberal hand in the quasi cross-examination of witnesses, 
and many an affidavit has been fractured by this process. 

In view of these facts the so-called author of the present 
book is merely an editor. In some of the conclusions he 
did not concur at first, and acquiesced in them only after 
the proofs left no doubt whatever of their accuracy. 

But at this writing there is a harmony of opinion. The 
most energetic defenders of the new views are men of the 
deepest research and profoundest thought, whose reputa- 
tions are a guaranty of their high standing in the scientific 
world. 



A PERSONAL NOTE 5 

Many of the statements made in this book are the direct 
assertions of others. All the laws were shaped by the 
pens of others and have been modified in but few instances. 
The conclusions were reached by all our members without 
discussion prior to their acceptance, showing the effect of 
the methods of proof. 

Because of the foregoing facts, the so-called author has 
not allowed his name to go forth as the writer of this vol- 
ume; as it would be manifestly unfair to take credit that 
belongs more to others than to himself. 

In placing these facts before the public there is not the 
least intention to evade responsibility. The president, the 
committee and the rank and file of the Psychic Society are 
unanimous in taking on themselves the full measure of 
duty and obligation to the world. 

Edmund Shaftesbury. 

September, 1907. 



STATEMENT BY THE COMMITTEE. 

Inasmuch as the chapters of the present book are the 
product of many men and many minds, it is but fair to 
state that they are placed in connected form by Edmund 
Shaftesbury, who, while adopting the ideas of others, has 
given them the power of his own style. 

In the account of the means whereby we secured proof 
and facts, much is said by us of the inspiration that came 
from the works of this well known author. The public 
already knows of the immense systems that he sent out 
years ago; and we can state here and now that if it had 
not been for the light that came to us and our Society 
from those systems, very little real progress would have 
been accomplished in the system which is now completed. 

No mortal man has possessed a keener insight into natu- 
ral laws than Shaftesbury. He has reached facts in a bound 
that plodding scientists would not have discovered in years. 
For every fact he has had a law, a natural process, and a 
logical order of proof. In the extent of his works which 
are the most stupendous and far-reaching in the world 
to-day, he has compassed thousands upon thousands of facts 
without an error. This accuracy stamps him as the most 
valuable of all investigators of the present epoch, and makes 
it easy to follow where he leads. 

Respectfully submitted by 

THE COMMITTEE. 



THE PERFECTED ORGANIZATION. 



It is important that the following terms should be thor- 
oughly understood : 



THE SHAFTESBURY SOCIETY. 

This is purely a literary name for the persons who are 
owners of this present volume. 

A Reader in the Shaftesbury Society is the literary name 
of the person who ow T ns this volume for his or her exclusive 
use. 



THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY. 

1. The Shaftesbury Society is the first step in the Psychic 
Society. This does not mean that a Reader in the Shaftes- 
bury Society belongs to the Psychic Society, but that any 
such Reader may, if he so desires, proceed with his researches 
and thus enter the latter organization ; for the laws of uni- 
versal life are so many and so boundless in their scope that 
they require an immense amount of thought and attention. 

2. The Psychic Society admits Readers on their applica- 
tion into Membership in three classes : 

A. — Reader-Members. ~) TM „ „ 

B.- Student-Members. psYCmc SOC IETY. 
C — investigators. J 

3. For brevity of terms any owner of this volume is known 
as a Reader; while the Members of the Psychic Society are 
known as Reader-Members, Students, and Investigators. 



NOTICE. 
No communication will 
receive attention unless 
addressed a? follows : 

RALSTON COMPANY 
1327 to 1329 15th St., 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 



PLAN. 

1. The universe is all physical; or it is part physical and 
part something else. 

2. As the proofs are abundant that something besides 
the physical exists, that which is not physical is necessarily 
psychic. 

3. A human being is born of earth and his five senses 
are built of earth, being developed by his contact with 
earthly experiences. 

4. He has only his five senses with which to acquire 
knowledge, unless he is able to derive information from 
some other source. 

5. As no other source exists outside the physical except 
the psychic, it is necessary for man to search within the 
latter in order to know more than his physical senses can 
teach him. 

6. The conditions that hold unseen sway over each 
human life, are all psychic, for the reason that they are 
not physical. 

7. Any attempt to secure knowledge of such conditions 
by the aid of the physical senses will always lead to mys- 
tery, error and superstition. 

8. If knowledge cannot be obtained by the aid of psychic 
agencies, then it will never come, as far as such conditions 
are concerned. 

9. Conclusive proof having been secured that the psychic 
senses occasionally break through the physical senses, much 
valuable information is now at hand from this source. 

10. All other methods of information are confined wholly 
within the realm of the psychic world. 

11. It therefore follows that there are two divisions to 
the study of the unseen powers that surround human life; 
one is devoted to a consideration of proofs furnished by 
physical glimpses, and the other the direct evidence fur- 
nished by psychic processes. 



FIRST DIVISION 

OF THE 

BOOK OF THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 



DEVOTED TO THE STUDY OF THE 

PROOFS FURNISHED BY THE 
PHYSICAL SENSES 




CHAPTER I. 
THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY. 

/ts/f^t^i^t . s.,, | v |,|^vlvlvKr.l.lvl.lvl.l.l.lvl.|.. I. • - lv Ivl . I yiv 4 , . . I . . . .TlT. . .~i~l" 



,ANY YEARS AGO at an informal meeting 
of a body of college professors the conversation 
turned upon the subject of the unseen powers 
that surround humanity. All present agreed 
that there were such powers, but no one 
seemed certain of their nature or means of 
controlling life, if in fact such was their office. 
On no subject of general interest was there so little exact 
opinion. It was the custom of the conservative person to 
say, " I do not know," to all inquiries bearing upon the rela- 
tionship of the supernatural with the natural. 

For the past fifty years or more it has been regarded as 
a mark of wisdom to refrain from having a fixed opinion 
in these matters; and the token of a careless thinker to 
even suggest a solution of psychic phenomena. 

Societies have been formed by men who at the start were 
unanimous in their belief that all claims of genuine psychic 
demonstrations are either fraudulent or made in honest 
mistake. The remarkable fact about such men is their 
subsequent conversion to a belief in the existence of telep- 
athy and soul existence ; but not in spiritualism. In more 
than two thousand cases, men of the highest learning and 
intelligence have passed from a state of denial of these 
things into a clearly established belief in them. 

A question that was put to a large number of men of 
solid sense and keen powers of study in this line of re- 
search, revealed the fact that every one of them entered 
their societies with a determination to find proof that there 



12 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

was no such thing as a psychic world, and that the five 
senses were the only means of communication with other 
beings on earth or elsewhere; but every one of these men 
found proofs so abundant and convincing to the contrary, 
that not one failed to accept the facts. Yet there was no 
one of their number who accepted the claim that ghosts or 
spirits existed on earth. 

One member framed the opinion or verdict of scores of 
others in the following words: 

" We had no belief in telepathy at the beginning of our 
investigations. We had no belief in manifestations of soul 
life after death. We looked upon spiritualism as a fraud 
in all its phases. Since making years of investigation we 
have agreed that telepathy is a true faculty, extending to 
all parts of the earth and beyond ; that every human body 
possesses a soul that is separate and distinct from all its 
ordinary faculties; but that continued spirit manifestations 
after death are impossible." 

Organizations that have carried on their work in dif- 
ferent parts of the world without knowledge of each other 
have arrived at the same conclusions. 

The Psychic Society for which this book is written was 
composed of men who were all disbelievers in psychic phe- 
nomena, and who had no opinion of soul life other than 
their religious tenets. They were conservative. They 
merely held the neutral ground of not knowing anything 
about the matters that had called forth decided views 
among the less learned classes of men and women. 

But with ample means at command they resolved to 
get at the facts. They differed from the English Society 
for Psychical Research and its American branch in the 
policy to reach a definite conclusion by higher methods, 
rather than deal with an endless number of typical cases 
that all led to one common conclusion. 

They were confident that the right kind of energy and 
persistence would sooner or later lead to facts that could 



THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 13 

not admit of wrong views on these the greatest of all 
subjects. 

No society ever gave spiritualism a fairer trial. That all 
these men were converted from a non-belief in telepathy 
to become firm defenders of that power, and also from a 
non-belief in psychic life to an acceptance of the doctrines 
herein published, speaks plainly of their willingness to lay 
aside private opinions in the cause of a new science, and 
to look only to proofs that were convincing from every 
point of view. 

The work of the Psychic Society is divided into two great 
fields of results; and these are presented in this book in like 
manner. 

It should be borne in mind that the various organizations 
of learned investigators that have become famous in recent 
years, have devoted themselves to but one line of research. 
They have proceeded on the following plan : 

1. They first took cognizance of reports of phenomena, 
and sought the names and addresses of all persons who 
might give testimony concerning them. 

2. They then sent trustworthy men to sift all statements 
to their face value and report whether the supposed facts 
were true, probable, improbable or false. 

3. They finally made a statement of the case. 

The bulky records of such societies are loaded with these 
results and nothing more, except sittings with mediums. 

Such methods do not bring complete satisfaction, for 
they leave the pith of the matter undecided. 

Our Psychic Society has gone to the farthest extreme in 
securing the means of reaching evidence. It believes that 
as there are subconscious faculties, these should be brought 
into the service of furnishing proof where other agencies 
are lacking. 

Based on this plan of action the present work will give 
to the world a new science the importance of which must 
outweigh all other studies in human estimation. 




M 



CHAPTER II. 

SOURCES OF HELP. 

i i 



ACTS THAT are associated with the deep- 
est problems of human experience, cannot be 
easily secured. Shaftesbury has stated many 
times that human life is cut off at two ex- 
tremes, its source and its exit. He has also 
said that two walls shut out the knowledge 
of the universe, the wall of darkness where 
the most powerful microscope ceases to impart informa- 
tion, and the wall of vastness where the most powerful 
telescope finds its limit. 

It is also another saying of Shaftesbury that knowledge 
that comes from the senses is the least of all wisdom, 
knowledge that comes from reasoning is always uncertain, 
but knowledge that comes from psychic evidence is always 
certain and reliable for it cannot admit of doubt or in- 
accuracy. 

There has been no age in the history of the world when 
seeming facts have been so unreliable as at this time. Peo- 
ple are beginning to find out how misleading the senses are 
when the nervous system is defective. A keen, clear judg- 
ment in a well balanced mind is necessary to determine 
what are facts. When these are secured, the next step is 
that which gives a due value to what they import. 

The third step is that which discovers the law at work 
in a given state of facts. 

The Psychic Society for thirty years has delved into the 
personal history of tens of thousands of individuals. They 
have had wonderful things to tell. Much of their infor- 



SOURCES OF HELP 15 

mation has come from others and has been exaggerated in 
the repeating. This eliminated seventy per cent, of the 
testimony. What was left was so voluminous that a whole 
library could not contain it. It was the duty of the Society 
to get at the facts. How many people were honest in tell- 
ing their stories? Of those who did not intend to tell 
false things, only a comparative few were possessed of 
healthy and normal nervous systems. 

When the Psychic Society by a unanimous vote decided 
that ghosts did not and could not make sounds or ;>../ve or 
touch any material substance, the conclusion that is bound 
to be so important to the world was reached solely from 
an analytical investigation of thousands of cases that had 
on first sight been convincingly proved to the public mind. 
If the test cases, the leading incidents that had staggered 
the acute minds of others, were not true in fact, then there 
was nothing left on which to base the assertion that ghosts 
can produce sounds or move matter. On the other hand 
one of the Shaftesbury laws makes it clear why such super- 
natural transactions are impossible. 

Spiritualism has been wholly and finally demolished. It 
has not a peg to stand upon. Yet its leading, genuine claims 
are true. The fault is with its deductions. The occur- 
rences that it may honestly ascribe to spirits are operations 
of another class of laws, as is shown conclusively in this 
volume. 

While the sounds and physical demonstrations that have 
been charged to ghosts are now known not to come from 
such source, it is true that many psychic phenomena are 
occurring every day all over the earth. In proof of this 
fact we have had much help from the English Society for 
Psychical Research, and its American branch, both of which 
include men of the highest scholarship and fame in scien- 
tific circles. Those societies have been conservative in the 
extreme. Where they have found facts that are beyond 
the pale of dispute, they have refrained from drawing con- 



16 ' THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

elusions. A conclusion is a deduction which declares that 
a thing is so because certain facts have been proved. This 
is equivalent to saying that one fact proves another fact. 
No more dangerous doctrine could be taught. The next 
generation of scientists will learn to draw the line between 
one set of facts and another. 

A man of great learning has written a book in which he 
has demonstrated the fact that the soul is immortal be- 
cause telepathy has been proved to be a genuine and even 
common method of communication between people who are 
separated by great distances. He says in short that the 
subconscious faculty is the mind of the soul, and that it is 
active after the soul leaves the body. There are many 
steps between such facts, if true, and the conclusion that 
the soul is immortal. 

Everywhere there is abundant proof that telepathy is a 
universal and omnipresent power. It not only includes 
thought transference but also takes in a much wider scope 
of operations. These facts have been shown over and 
over again by the English and American Societies for Psy- 
chical Research and are accepted as true by all educated 
men and women. 

Yet long before such proofs were secured by those asso- 
ciations of conservative investigators, Shaftesbury had pub- 
lished his system of explanation with the laws that govern 
all phases of telepathy. 

That work was then said to be a leap in the dark; but 
its entire system has been proved to be true even in the 
slightest details. To our Psychic Society it has been a 
tower of strength in arriving at the truth. 

Twenty years ago it had become apparent that eveiy 
orb in the sky was within lines of communication with all 
other orbs, and that a chainwork of influence held them 
together as one community. This influence was suspected 
by Shaftesbury to be magnetic, and belonged to the same 
class of powers as personal magnetism and universal mag- 



SOURCES OF HELP 17 

netism. It was known that our solar system was held 
together by magnetic energy ; the moon to the earth, the 
satellites to the planets, and the planets to the sun. It was 
also known that our solar system was chained to the star 
worlds beyond by the same influence. 

Less than a quarter of a century ago, Shaftesbury pub- 
lished his first book of personal magnetism, taking the broad 
ground that it was an action that employed the waves of 
ether. He showed hypnotism to be its opposite. He made 
magnetism to be an ennobling, uplifting and fascinating 
power, helping to benefit all who used it and all who felt 
its charm ; just as a great leader thrills and enraptures his 
soldiers at the moment of conflict. 

Thus far two sources of help arose; telepathy and mag- 
netism. These came in addition to the facts that were 
proved by the physical senses. Six hundred thousand men 
and women of intelligence have studied and practiced the 
Shaftesbury method of magnetism, and have found it to be 
the mainstay of their lives. The system referred to was 
confined to the uses of the power between persons. So 
easily was it developed and so marked were its uses that 
it carried on its face conclusive proof of the existence of 
ether waves and a psychic world. It thus sustained the 
after claims of his great works on telepathy. 

These two fields of science were so valuable as sources 
of help to the Psychic Society that, without them, very 
little progress would have been possible in reaching the 
discoveries that have followed. 

A grander system was yet to be sent forth on its mission 
of light. It was known as Higher Magnetism, a work 
that has been superseded by two systems still greater. That 
work made its appearance eighteen years ago. It was 
copyrighted, and the volumes placed on file in the Library 
of Congress. This fact is important because the public 
are thus given the opportunity to go to those files and read 
the whole plan of the X-rays, which were not at that time 



18 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

conceived in the brain of any man except Shaftesbury. It 
was by leaps in the application of universal laws that he 
learned of the process whereby solids could be looked into. 
So Shakespeare wrote of the circulation of the blood years 
before it was actually discovered. In the volume of Higher 
Magnetism, Shaftesbury gives an analysis of the ether 
waves, and sets forth the first accurate statement of their 
nature and processes. He thus made wireless telegraphy 
a simple fact, and this was many years before that discovery 
was made. The date of copyright of that wonderful book 
and the date of filing the book itself, being years before the 
discovery of the X-rays and of wireless telegraphy, will 
furnish ample proof of the priority of its existence. 

These are but two instances of the accuracy with which 
Shaftesbury has stated the gigantic laws of the universe. 

Inventors have found that book to be an inspiring help to 
their minds in their efforts to create something new in idea 
and yet true to natural laws. One inventor has told 
this committee that he has already reaped a fortune from 
the use of those ideas. 

Doctors have recently found that the soul has some sub- 
stance and that it can be weighed. They have also found 
that the soul actually passes out of the- body as an entirety, 
and moves rapidly through a certain course or path on 
earth before leaving its former locality. These are solemn 
facts, full of the deepest meaning; but they are all set forth 
with absolute accuracy of description in that book which 
was placed on file in the Library of Congress many years 
ago. 

It is needless to say that such a system must be a source 
of help to the Psychic Society, the value of which cannot 
be stated in words. 

But the power of magnetism proved to be so great that 
it led the way to the remotest corners of the universe. In 
every step of the way the proofs were abundant and con- 
vincing. The system already referred to was enlarged into 



SOURCES OF HELP 19 

a giant volume known as Universal Magnetism, and later 
on a special branch of the subject appeared under the title 
of Advanced Magnetism. These two works sold for sev- 
enty-five dollars, and are owned by almost every leading 
thinker in America and England. French and German 
scientists have bought them, in many instances going to 
the expense of having written translations made for their 
private use at the cost of hundreds of dollars. 

The system of Universal Magnetism showed the exact 
relationship between distant influences throughout the sky 
and the psychic world as it exists on earth to-day. There 
is no instance where any student of that system has not 
fully accepted the laws and facts set forth in it; for it 
proves itself at every step of the way. 

What is called the greatest of the Shaftesbury works is 
that known as Universal Philosophy, or Our Existence. 
Its price, one hundred dollars, keeps it in a limited channel. 
It was written for private circulation among a few scien- 
tists; but a larger work is in preparation and may some 
day be published at his personal expense as a gift to his 
followers. Yet Our Existence contains one thousand les- 
sons covering every great law of creation and destiny. 
While it is largely argumentative, it has promulgated some 
gigantic truths that were never before hinted at in any 
philosophy. It never fails to convince an intelligent mind. 

The purpose of relating the foregoing facts is to show 
that our Psychic Society naturally built itself about Shaftes- 
bury. In fully thirty years of association, there has never 
yet been a statement or law set forth by him that has been 
inaccurate. 

With telepathy, the tongue of psychic communication, 
and magnetism, the chain that brings the whole universe 
together into one close community, it was a comparatively 
easy matter to evolve the laws and facts that are contained 
in this Book of the Psychic Society. 

This chapter is the direct contribution of the committee, 



20 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

li- 
as the constant reference to the author made it essential 

that he should not deal with the sources of help by which 

this association has been enabled to carry on its work. 

It should be said in closing that he has permitted many 

of the foundation principles of those expensive works to 

be used in the second division of this volume in order that 

the general public who cannot afford the costly systems 

may have access to the greatest of all laws of earth or 

sky in the book now placed within the reach of every 

reader. 




21 



CHAPTER III. 

| INVESTIGATING STORIES. | 

I 1 

n "i~r. ii " i~ rr.1 i .1" i -i i i it "1 1 1 1 ■ iTi 111 . 1 . 1 1 .. 1 . 1 . 1 1 1 1 . 1 .- 1 . 1 y 



URING A PERIOD extending fully thirty 
years, the Psychic Society has carried on a 
steady work of investigation into the claims 
made upon the public attention in these phe- 
nomena. Everything that had any basis what- 
ever for belief has been carefully looked into, 
and especially those accounts that seem on their 
face to be so well proved that they cannot admit of doubt, 
if the statements of interested persons are to be accepted 
without challange. 

Some of the stones have been built up with a wonderful 
degree of ingenuity; the purpose being to convince the minds 
of others by overwhelming evidence. Thousands of such 
cases have been sifted to mere nothing. 

There are Sunday papers in this country that publish 
ghost stories under the caption of TRUE ACCOUNTS. 
Each . story is accompanied by introductory proof of its 
truth. So cleverly are these narratives told, and so well 
authenticated are they made to appear that many thousands 
of people are undoubtedly converted to a belief in them. 
The injury done the mind is very great. 

The magazines are more cautious. They place before 
their readers the claims and opinions of various classes of 
people, and occasionally add some stories that are said to 
be vouched for by men and women of veracity. 

In view of the constant attempt to mislead the public, 
the Psychic Society certainly has had an important field of 
labor. It has been our one hope to arrive at the truth, re- 



22 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

gardless of where it led us. As an example of the latest 
well-built ghost story, we will cite the account that ran for 
some days in the paper of a great city. The daily has been 
in existence for a year, and is in need of readers; although 
every live newspaper is seeking an increased circulation all 
the time. The house was well selected for the purpose. 
A family was said to have moved in and then to have 
vacated the house in a short time; spending two fearful 
nights there. Between the hours of one and three the 
ghosts appeared, partly as forms, but chiefly as noise-makers. 
Sledge-hammers that must have weighed a hundred pounds 
each were made to strike against doors, and trunks that 
contained not less than hundreds of pounds of metal went 
crashing from the top floor down into the empty cellar. 
Lights shone in all parts of the house when none in fact 
were burning. The strongest part of the story was the 
fact that a night policeman by name of S. N. Wade was 
made to state that he stood on the opposite side of the 
street and heard the crashing sounds within the house, and 
thought that some one was attempting to wreck the whole 
inside structure. He entered the building and saw ghostly 
lights. Interviews with him were published in which he 
confirmed the statements; but it was all done in the same 
newspaper. 

As a test of the influence which these accounts had on 
the public, many persons who had never before believed in 
such things, were convinced of the truth of the claims that 
ghosts did actually visit houses in the manner stated. Yet 
not one person went to the trouble to test the veracity of 
the newspaper. Crowds assembled daily and nightly about 
the house, and the circulation of the paper increased. 

The one part of the account that most impressed the 
public was the connection of the police officer, S. N. Wade, 
with the affair. We wrote to Major Richard Sylvester, 
Superintendent of Police. The reply came as follows: 
"September 18, 1907. ... I beg to state that the 



INVESTIGATING STORIES 23 

Acting Captain of the Second Police Precinct informs the 
Department that Private S. N. Wade positively declares 
that there is no truth in the published article to which 
you called attention." Thus one of the most convincing 
and probable stories came to the usual end. From other 
standpoints of inquiry, we find that thousands of persons 
have not learned of its falsity, and that many have been 
thrown into a highly nervous state through the horrible 
details that w T ere invented in the telling of the affair in 
the paper. Almost endless harm has been done in many 
homes, and all for the sole purpose of increasing the circu- 
lation of a newspaper. 

This is merely a sample case. Being the latest we have 
investigated it is inserted in this book just before going to 
press. 

Other stories have been as well sustained in the narrat- 
ing, and some have been bolstered up by affidavits and 
many counter-statements. A few recent instances will be 
cited ; although they all bear the same earmarks as those 
told years ago. 

One of the most probable accounts of the appearance of 
a ghost in ordinary garb came from several persons in a 
small town, all of whom vouched for the truthfulness of 
the assertions. 

There was a house the first floor of which contained 
three rooms; a front room, a middle room, and a kitchen 
ell. From the back door of the ell a path led to the open 
country through a deep yard of trees. In the front of the 
house there was a public road, and old trees on both sides. 
There was an oil lamp on a high post under one of these 
trees; and, no matter how bright the sky at night, shadows 
were always abundant. 

On summer nights it was the custom to leave the doors 
and windows open. A family had recently moved out of 
the house without giving any reason at the time. Another 
family moved in. The second evening a scream came from 



24 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

the kitchen, uttered by the Dutch cook. She declared that a 
man had walked through the kitchen and disappeared in 
the yard at the rear; yet three persons in the front rooms 
had not seen him. On another night, a man stood looking 
at the people in the room through an open window, his 
head being within two feet of the lady nearest him. She 
did not see him, but felt the heat of his face, as she called 
it; although two others saw him distinctly. Thinking he 
was a tramp, they screamed and ran out. 

Soon after this occurrence the same man was seen passing 
through the house, having entered the kitchen unseen by 
the cook, and walking between two persons in the middle 
room. One spoke to him, but declared that he vanished 
in the instant. Both ran to the door, but no one was in 
sight. 

Inquiry was made of the family that had moved out, 
and they said they left because of the same occurrences. 
They even stated that the man would move chairs as he 
passed, and would seem to vanish. 

So strong were the affidavits and so well sustained was 
the account from several sources, that a thorough investi- 
gation was made by others. It turned out that the man 
was insane, and exceedingly light of foot; entering a room 
noiselessly, and appearing to vanish rather than pass out. 
He was allowed his freedom until these facts were clearly 
proven, and then he was taken to an asylum. 

Not one case of physical demonstration has stood the test 
of a genuine investigation. By this we mean that the 
sounds made by supposed ghosts, if made at all, have their 
cause elsewhere; and that the physical visitations which 
involve violence have no basis in fact as far as the psychic 
world is concerned. 



25 



CHAPTER IV. 



-t -M - t t - t - T \- . t . . t , , i , t It T t " t ' t ■ t_t M - ! - I - t !_t t I !_^f -_f t 1 »_( ' 1-- 

1 NATURE OF SOUNDS. 1 

i . 1 

avivh.i,i,i.i.i.i,j,i.i.i,M.i,i,i.i.i,i.i,ki,i>.i,Ki.Ki.i.i.i.i.i.i i,i,i.i,i ;i: 




HAT IS KNOWN as sound has no existence 
in itself. It is merely a creation of the sensi- 
tive nerves of the brain. The basis of all 
sound is air. The air may be still or it may 
^ N be moving; but still air or moving air of itself 
does not furnish the basis of sound. If you 
will imagine a mass of gelatine very long, very 
wide and very thick, resting upon a large platform; and 
also imagine that one part of this mass is struck a blow 
that vibrates the whole jelly-like mass from end to end, 
you will obtain a fair idea of the manner in which air fur- 
nishes the basis of sound. 

If the gelatine could be extended for a long distance, a 
blow struck at one end would vibrate the mass to the other 
end ; in fact it might travel for miles if so large a distance 
were possible for the construction of this kind of a medium. 
But the gelatine itself does not move. It vibrates, and the 
waves of mass-motion reach as far as the mass extends. 

A wave of the ocean is a surface action. If you drop 
a pebble in still water, ripples will run out in all direc- 
tions; but the water itself will not move. A chip riding 
on its bosom would be found in the same place after the 
ripples ceased, as before they began. A body of water 
apparently quiet may be moving in one direction, and 
ripples made on its surface may be moving in the opposite 
direction ; showing that the mass may sustain vibrations 
independent of the direction in which the whole body may 
be moving. 



26 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

This is true of sound in air. A strong wind may carry 
the air in one direction while the tones of the voice may be 
traveling in another, although the removal of the medium 
will also take away the vibrations of its mass. 

Water will carry the waves of sound ; but they are not 
like the waves of the ocean, nor the ripples on its face; 
being merely vibrations of the mass of the water itself. 
Solid wood will also transmit sound by vibration of its 
molecules. 

Everything is hollow and porous. 

In the structure of the densest solids, the molecules that 
make up the mass are held apart by laws similar to those 
that keep the sun and planets from coming together; and a 
tiny being small enough to stand upon the surface of one 
of these particles that compose the mass, would look out 
upon the other particles somewhat as we view the moon 
and sun. Such small proportions are almost inconceivable. 

As everything is hollow and porous it is easy to under- 
stand how heat, magnetism, sound and other activities can 
pass through them. If there were such things as ghosts 
with only an ether-body, it would have no difficulty what- 
ever in moving through a solid wall. What is solid to the 
eye is exceedingly porous in fact. 

Like water, the air is a mass; the difference being that it 
is more porous. It is composed chiefly of two gases; and 
the same is true of water; the former being made up of 
nitrogen and oxygen; while the latter consists of hydrogen 
and oxygen. 

Sound is a vibration of the molecules in any mass. We 
are most familiar with it in the atmosphere. These vibra- 
tions, coming against an electric current, as in the tele- 
phone, may be carried on wires to distant places, far beyond 
the range of the voice when employed in the air alone. 

Some authorities claim that sound is the vibration of 
the ether or inner medium which enters into all solids and 
passes beyond all physical bodies, even to the remotest parts 



NATURE OF SOUNDS 27 

of the universe. This claim has been found not to be true. 
Light is ether vibration; but sound is the vibration of the 
molecules. The difference is important in determining 
some questions that follow later on in this book. 

But at the same time it is a fact that the vibrations of 
the molecules in the air may be transferred into the ether 
by the nervous action of the brain. 

We now approach the peculiar part of this subject; or 
the relation of the brain to sound. 

The first sentence of this chapter states that sound has 
no existence of itself. It makes no noise unless its vibra- 
tions act upon the nerve-centers of the brain. The noise 
it then makes is not actual. There must be a function in 
the nerves of the brain that translates or interprets the 
vibrations into what the mind accepts as sound. In the 
core of the brain, to use a common term, the gray matter 
of a series of cells is so acted upon by the vibrations of the 
air that they produce the result known as sound. 

Take a spoken word for example. 

The larynx of the throat holds in check a column of air 
that is passing out of the lungs. The vocal cords compress 
the column. Each cord or part of the larynx is so deli- 
cately hung that it trembles as the checked flow of air 
presses against it ; and this motion passes to the air itself, 
which goes out of the mouth still trembling or vibrating. 
The varying rapidity of the waves gives rise to the varying 
degrees of pitch. 

Having thus set up vibrations of air, the effect is like 
that made on a mass of gelatine ; the whole body of air 
vibrates in all directions, and as many persons can hear as 
are able to come within the range of the voice. Words 
are combinations of vibrations, or shapes into which they 
are compressed. There are vowels and consonants. Vow- 
els are round, flat or open, owing to whatever shapes are 
given to the escaping column of air. Consonants are in- 
terruptions of the out-going air; the column being cut off 



28 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

by the interference of some part of the mouth, as the lips, 
teeth, point of tongue, middle of tongue, back of tongue, 
throat, etc. 

The brain is able to distinguish between a round and a 
flat column of air; or a different characteristic in the in- 
terruption of the sound ; and this ability is even effective 
after the vibrations have pressed through an electric cur- 
rent. 

A person whose brain had never heard a spoken word 
would not be able to tell the difference between vowels 
and consonants, or one vowel from another, or one conso- 
nant from another. Spoken words, therefore, are the re- 
sult of a brain that has been educated by experience. 

Every live, normal brain can hear what is called a sound. 

The waves that are set in motion by the vocal cords are 
taken up by the air, and strike against the drum of the 
ear. This drum is also capable of vibration. Its duty is 
to carry on the same waves of sound that come against it. 
But, having done this, the passage to the brain must take 
part in the transmission of the vibrations as far as the 
nerve of hearing. It is an electrical wire, and does merely 
telephone work up to that point where the brain-cells must 
interpret the waves into a shock on the core of that great 
organ. 

Let the drum of the ear be lacking and the loudest 
sounds will be dead silence. Let the nerve of hearing be 
paralyzed, and stillness will prevail even in the downward 
rush of Niagara. Let the brain-cells be deficient, and the 
explosion of cannon or the loudest peal of thunder will 
have no existence to the individual. 



29 



CHAPTER V. 






i 



± 



GHOSTLY SOUNDS. 



~i~i~i~t~t~i~t~t 



'„' -'„'„'„'. -'„'_'_'— V^'_'. .'„'_'., 



tVlvtvtvt 







OLLOWING the description given in the 
preceding chapter, it may be easily seen how 
delicate a tissue of the brain is charged with 
the duty of creating sound. The waves that 
fill the mass of air are quiet and unobtrusive. 
The storm-tossed ocean is destructive in its 
violence, but has nothing of the power on the 
brain that is possessed by the silent and unseen vibrations 
that pass from a distant cannon and find meaning in the 
thought-centers. The billows may wreck a mighty ship ; 
while the explosive sound will not even be heard if the 
brain is not able to give it existence upon its sensitive 
tissue. 

Motion is all about us. Much of it appeals solely to the 
eye. The silent growth of leaves and giant trees is a 
tremendous process in nature; but not one sound is made 
in its activity, because the brain is not aroused to interpret 
such a process. Unseen, unassuming, unfelt, the slight 
vibrations of air-masses, and not the air itself, reach the 
delicate nerve-centers and there are so enlarged that what 
was dead stillness outside, becomes the living impression 
known as sound. 

It is the sheer creation of the brain itself. 
The nerves that are employed to make this creation are 
surrounded by pulsing functions, rushing streams of blood 
and chemical changes that are necessary to the life of the 
brain ; but, not being waves of the right kind, there is no 
noise to this machinery of the vital government. 



3 o THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

A normal brain hears few if any sounds that are not the 
direct result of air-vibrations. But let the nerves get out 
of order, let there be the slightest inflammation of the 
tissue in the sound-centers, and other creations are brought 
into existence than those that are transmitted by air waves. 

In nearly all kinds of fever there is excitement along 
the nerve of hearing, and congestion or pressure in the cells 
where sound is created. Noises result, and they are called 
strange. 

"Who is ringing that bell?" is asked by the fever- 
racked patient, when all is still. 

"Will you have that pounding stopped?" is also a re- 
quest from another similar source. 

The murderer who slew the traveling merchant one win- 
ter's night, heard the sleigh-bells of his victim until he 
sought peace by confession. The cries of those who have 
suffered at the hands of others have haunted the guilty 
parties for years afterward. " I have never for one day 
been free from the piercing shrieks of the man I killed," 
said a criminal to a member of the Psychic Society. 

Criminology abounds in such confessions. 

A woman left alone in a house by night may allow her 
thoughts to run to the possible dangers of her position. 
She may know that the doors and windows are securely 
bolted, and thus feel safe from all physical dangers; but 
soon her mind will run to the other channel, the super- 
natural. Stillness is so profound that the settling of the 
house itself, which seems to never end, produces sounds 
that could not possibly be heard in the day time, but that 
now are enlarged by the excited nerve-centers of her brain 
until each creak is a sledge-hammer blow. A leaf against 
the pane that rattles with such minuteness of motion as 
to be hardly as active as a breath on the rose, now is mag- 
nified into knocks by icy fingers. Tap, tap, tap, knock, 
knock, knock, the ghostly hand plays its weird tattoo on 
the glass, and the woman shrinks into the farthest corner 



GHOSTLY SOUNDS 31 

of the room, expecting to see the window open and the 
white form enter. 

One case that attracted attention was that of a man who 
had to work by night and sleep by day. He remained alone 
in an old building. One evening he took up his work with 
an aching head which did not get better as the hours wore 
away. Then he rested for a while. The throbs of pain 
in his head were translated to him as the sounds of foot- 
steps in the hallways of the building. These came to his 
door, and a loud knock followed. 

" Come in," he said rather feebly. 

The knocking grew louder, and he now hurried to the 
door to find it unlocked, as he supposed, but the hallway 
empty. 

Somewhat alarmed, but of a strong resisting mind for 
such a belief as that a ghost were the cause of the sounds, 
he returned to his room after securely locking the door. 

He fell into a dose, but had his eyes open half the time, 
and soon saw the door open, but no form appear. He 
arose, went to the door and found it closed and locked. 
He afterwards admitted that this erratic vision was due 
to the excited state of his brain; but he could not under- 
stand the sounds. 

On a subsequent night, when he was free from the head- 
ache, he heard what he supposed were faint sounds, as of 
someone walking in bare feet on the hallway floor. He 
was now sensitive and nervous, and listened. In a short 
time the sounds changed to those of heavy steps in big 
boots in an empty room directly over his head. This was 
more than he could endure, and he called in an officer. 
The two men searched the building from end to end with- 
out result. 

On the next night he had a friend remain with him for 
the purpose of securing proof of the condition of things; 
but, as no sounds had been heard up to three o'clock, the 
friend went away. The man now being alone at once 



32 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

grew nervous and the sounds began. Footsteps were heard 
passing from the basement to the third floor, then back 
again, sometimes running, sometimes stamping, and finally 
ended at his door. Silence that was horrible ensued for 
what seemed minutes, then came a vigorous pounding at 
the door only a few feet away from him. 

He vacated the house the next day and moved into one 
that was occupied. No sounds were ever heard there, 
except one rainy night in winter when he imagined that he 
was back again in the old building, and footsteps were 
audible. As he listened he caught the rhythmic action of 
his own heart-beats corresponding with the blows made by 
falling feet, and he soon was satisfied that the noises were 
due wholly to an excited state of the sensitive tissue of 
the brain. 

Fear produces excitement, and excitement produces an 
abnormal activity of the brain. 

In a nerve-center that is charged with the duty of creat- 
ing sounds out of the silent vibrations of the air, any other 
creation is possible when inflammation, congestion, pressure 
or excitement may be present. 

It has been the most frequent of all investigations of the 
Psychic Society, to follow out the claims of people who 
have been alarmed by ghostly sounds; and not in one in- 
stance has there been any evidence that is conclusive to 
prove that spirits are the cause of such manifestations. This 
fact is so clearly in evidence to-day that it can be laid down 
as an axiom that ghosts make no sound whatever, even if 
they make themselves known at all. 



33 




CHAPTER VI. 



v|j' ,_M - ., ~ , - t ■ , - I - t >_t_' I " I !_• -I -I • " t_> • ■ I ' l - I I ' l ■ I ' ' " t " • " 1 ■ 1 I ■ I ' ■ I "I ' t I -_1 ' t " I » t ~ 1/ 

GHOSTiLY VIOLENCE. 

I I 



WO CLASSES of cases are to be considered 
under this general subject. By violence is 
meant the laying on of hands, or the rough 
physical demonstrations that attend the so- 
called visitations of the spirits. The first class 
is that in which the person who is visited is 
not in any way a party to a mediumistic influ- 
ence. The second class is that in which persons or things 
are roughly handled while a supposed medium is manipu- 
lating the spirits. 

.In dealing with the first class, we have the same condi- 
tions that arise when ghostly sounds are produced ; and 
these have been disposed of in another part of this book. 
But the process is different. 

There are three kinds of contact with the brain of a 
human being in the uses of the senses most often involved 
in the manifestations: 

1. Physical contact, or the sense of touch. 

2. Vibrations of air-masses, or the sense of hearing. 

3. Vibrations of the ether, or the sense of sight. 
All three must reach the brain, or they will fail. 

If the nerves are paralyzed that connect the surface of the 
body with the head, the sense of touch fails ; but it is none 
the less active. It thus differs from the sense of hearing 
and sight. 

To a blind person there is no light. To a deaf person 
there is no sound. But a blow dealt one who has lost the 
sense of feeling may, if violent, do injury. Such a person 
3 



34 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

can be pushed from a window and killed. He may be 
burned and suffer harm and even lose his life, while not 
feeling pain. 

The sense of touch is more necessary than that of hear- 
ing or sight; for the lack of it takes away part of the life 
of the body, and is sure to lessen the term of duration on 
earth. 

On the other hand the over-sensitive state of the body 
in the use of the sense of touch, is productive of many dis- 
agreeable experiences. One who is nervous suffers most 
from this cause. 

The surface of the body deceives the mind at times by 
sensations that are due to a defective supply of nervous 
power at the skin. 

" I felt the touch of a cold hand on my neck," is the 
statement of a nervous woman. But the cause of that 
feeling was an abnormal condition of the body at that 
part. 

" Every day or two a cold hand crawls down my back," 
says a woman who is likewise afflicted with a defective sup- 
ply of nervous vitality. 

A common case occurred recently. A man insisted that 
some one was poking a finger into the upper arm just below 
the shoulder. He would turn suddenly as if to catch the 
guilty party. But the fact was that he had on a stiff coat 
which bent inward at the place affected, and caused a pres- 
sure to come against the flesh whenever he moved. 

In another similar case a woman who insisted that she 
was being visited by spirits because a pressure was felt on 
the wrist when no person was in the room, was shown that 
the touch came from the wrinkling of clothing which 
brought a pressure to bear upon her arm. The degree of 
power was so slight that a normal individual would never 
feel it; but the super-sensitive nerves magnified it greatly. 

The opening of a door must be ascribed to physical action 
or the sense of touch. There are ghost stories unlimited 



GHOSTLY VIOLENCE 35 

in number and apparently sustained by conclusive proofs 
in which doors and windows are opened, and impossible 
feats accomplished with material matter. But these are 
merely " stories." Not one has ever been entitled to be- 
lief. They have been thoroughly investigated, without re- 
sult. 

A child cried to its mother in the night that some one 
had lifted it out of bed and laid it on the floor. The 
mother regarded this as a sign that the child would soon 
die. But she was shown other ways of accounting for the 
occurrence, and the child lived. The whole incident was 
founded on a dream that seemed to be a waking transaction 
to the mind of the child. 

Many persons claim that they have been visited at night 
by violent ghosts. One of the usual tricks is to tear the 
clothing from the bed. In no case that has been reported 
of this kind has the ghost been seen during the act of taking 
the clothing off. Yet we have received hundreds of affi- 
davits to the effect that some agency had, in the dark, 
removed the bedclothes, and even entered into a struggle 
with the occupant of the bed, always winning in the tug 
of war. 

In every such instance one person has had the experi- 
ence; never two in the same room or the same bed. This 
fact leaves the question of veracity open to doubt; for what 
occurs in the night to a nervous person may be charged to 
a highly excited nervous system, or to a state of half-wake- 
fulness, or a dream. Many dreams seem to be as real as 
the transactions of the day. 

In a list of more than one thousand reported cases of 
physical violence, not one has been based on the claim that 
injury was done to the individual. When force has been 
employed, it has done no harm of any kind. Some state 
that furniture has been broken, legs wrenched from strong 
tables, chairs demolished, pictured thrown to the floor, and 
crockery and china ruined by strange visitations; but there 



36 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

is not a single instance where two or more persons were 
witnesses of such deeds. In the very nature of the testi- 
mony bearing on these subjects, the word of one individual 
cannot be taken ; for all men and women, and even children, 
who are thus visited, are highly nervous before they pass 
through the experiences named. 

Under the subject of self-hypnotism, suggestion may arise 
from a passing thought, and the whole affair may occur in 
a cataleptic state. In proof of this assertion, over two hun- 
dred of the persons who made affidavits to the events stated, 
were found to be nervously diseased along cataleptic lines. 

There is a stage of this malady that admits of full con- 
sciousness of the mind, while the occurrences are due to 
the fault named. If two persons who w T ere subject to the 
malady were to witness the same event, it would undoubt- 
edly be ascribable to suggestion from one in which both 
concurred. No human being, placed in such a situation, 
is able to tell the truth from the seeming facts, if he is the 
subject of the visitation, as it is termed. The explanation 
is apparent on its face in every such case. Yet honest men 
and women have sworn to a state of facts that carried 
conviction to the unwary mind. The proof was unassail- 
able, as it appeared. 

Strict fairness requires us to state that every genuine 
medium or clairvoyant is a cataleptic. It is also true that 
every person who can be hypnotized, may be developed into 
a medium or clairvoyant, with more or less power to in- 
terpret the subconscious activities of the minds of other 
persons. But this takes us too close to the other depart- 
ments of this work. The laws of psychic life that apply to 
such cases will be found fully presented and explained in 
other pages. 

This statement is made here to show the many chances 
for error in accepting proof, even when under oath and 
offered by persons who are sincere and honest. " I know," 
and " I am absolutely sure," are terms that fall with ease 



GHOSTLY VIOLENCE 37 

from such lips, while their conclusions are wholly wrong. 
A clergyman of national reputation, and one who is uni- 
versally respected, said: "I certainly believe what I see 
with my own eyes, hear with my own ears, and feel with 
my own hands." He had a combination that was impreg- 
nable in his opinion ; yet he finally admitted that he did not 
know how to interpret the senses that had supplied him 
with the apparent facts. 

Most of the things that are seen and heard under certain 
conditions are untrustworthy; and what is felt may be 
also a creation of the morbid mind of a nervous person. 



More troublesome to the investigator are the acts of 
violence that occur under the direction or leadership of a 
genuine medium. The latter term must not be accepted 
with the belief that we have discovered genuine mediums. 
Most of those who claim to be such, are frauds straight 
and simple. Many who are genuine have very limited 
powers, and are totally unable to communicate with spirits. 
But they can arouse a certain kind of violent action. They 
produce knocks that are heard by several persons in the 
same group. They cause tables to move, and chairs to be 
lifted up by invisible agencies. 

The fraud enters when they claim to possess powers to 
communicate with the dead. They have no such gift, nor 
has one human being that ever lived been given the power 
to bring the dead before the living, even in sound and 
action, in writing, or otherwise. There the fraud begins. 
Perhaps they may think in all honesty that they have such 
powers. A part of a gift may give rise to a belief that the 
whole faculty is present. 

Nevertheless there are mediums who are able to cause 
physical violence. We once owned a table that had been 
broken by such an agency, and it was made of genuine 
mahogany more than a hundred years old. The mere 
breaking of it did not prove that a spirit had taken part in 



38 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

the transaction. It was the work of the subconscious fac- 
ulties, overcoming gravity and doing exactly what would 
occur in any successful attempt to annul that fundamental 
law of nature. 

It cannot be denied that gravity or the earth's attraction 
may be suspended. 

It has been proved that the psychical realm is one in 
which there is no law of gravity. 

Hence it is not at all wonderful that objects can be 
made to move about and show a defiance of this great force. 

Each of these conditions will be fully explained in turn 
as the present work progresses. 




39 



CHAPTER VII. 

iKSVSt^WM ^.t --M '"'■' ■'"'' ^ ' ^1£JSJ~J£J-^* M ' "■* ^"I^A|,".|a,a,a.,/. , a.» /■« . , ^| a r A.TAI At Af.AT.A f a f AfATAJ/W 

1 PRE-MORTEM COMPACTS. 

1 

;.» i. l .i... 1 ...i.i.i.ui.i.,.i.i. iTiTi . i v i , i v i v t iVvi .i i.i.i.r.r.i»i,i,i<ivi; 



HOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of 

persons have agreed during life to send back 
information after death if there were life be- 
jyond the grave. These agreements are gen- 
erally made in sincerity. Some of them have 
been put in writing and sworn to, in order 
that the full impressiveness of the contract 
may be understood. If you can find any two women whose 
beliefs have turned strongly toward the future world, 
and who are close friends, you will likely find that a pre- 
mortem agreement has been made to the effect that the one 
who shall die first will, as soon as possible after death, fur- 
nish some information of the spirit life, telling what it is like 
and giving proof of the genuine existence of the soul as an 
immortal being. 

Men likewise who are close friends have made such 
agreements and are doing so to-day. In the several soci- 
eties for psychical research, these compacts have been made, 
both in England and America. In the latter organization, 
one of the foremost investigators agreed with his co-worker 
in the same cause, to make himself manifest in case he should 
die first; the other party promising the same thing in the 
event of his departing first. It seems that this case is one 
that cannot admit of doubt. After the death of one of 
the men, no manifestations were forthcoming until a me- 
dium was sought, a woman who had acted as clairvoyant 
to both of them for many years. Through her powers the 
dead man sent word of a very indefinite character telling 



4 o THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

vaguely and disjointedly some things that had occurred in 
the lifetime of the man. The results were such that the 
living professor is credited with believing that he actually 
did receive word from the spirit of his friend. 

But here again they have missed connections. The 
woman who acted as medium is a genuine clairvoyant. 
She has not been in a position to acquire the means of 
trickery, and has had no disposition to do so if she were 
so inclined. She possesses what all human beings own, a 
subconscious faculty; but hers is acute in the highest degree. 
On the pages of her mental book are written an endless 
number of impressions that respond to the wish of others 
through a state of utter chaos. There is nothing to pre- 
clude the theory that her subconscious mind unearthed after 
death the facts that were present in the brains of those who 
lived when she knew them. 

If the spirit of the dead wished to manifest itself to a 
living friend, it would not be necessary to select the most 
skilful of living mediums, and the most gifted clairvoyant 
of modern times, in order to so appear. Not many persons 
could secure the services of so rare an individual. Nor is 
such an appearance a fair test of the life of the spirit. 
Currents of interest run in grooves or like gulf stream 
lines, and a gifted medium would be able to reproduce 
thoughts and facts even after the death of one who had 
been a total stranger to her, and make known things that 
would be as strange to her own mind as to those who wit- 
nessed them. 

A wish and a hope are fathers of a large family of ideas. 
To expect an occurrence while under the excitement of a 
nervous strain, is helpful to its happening. Then another 
law comes into play, that of response to suggestion. Here 
are two fields of psychic phenomena, both of which produce 
wonderful results when measured by the ordinary trend 
of life. 

This is not the place to explain the process by which 



PRE-MORTEM COMPACTS 41 

messages apparently come from the dead, when the latter 
really know nothing of them and are barred from all possi- 
bility of sending them. To tell just how each case hap- 
pens would require the examination of the whole question 
of telepathy, and space forbids at this stage of the work. 
As there are a few well established instances in which the 
evidence seems strong and genuine that the spirits of the 
departed have actually had communications with living 
persons, we have thrown out the above hints to show how 
easily the mind may be misled. 

It all comes down to the question of connecting an 
occurrence with its real cause. We may not be sure that 
the thing has happened at all, or we may be sure; but it 
requires an expert mind to associate what is sure to have 
happened with the thing that caused it. Here is where 
so many mistakes are made. It is the w T rong connection 
that misleads. 

If a medium attends Mr. Brown in a seance and imparts 
to him the information, no matter how indirect, that Henry 
Jones who died some time ago, now declares that he is 
alive in the spirit world, and tells of secrets that were 
known in life only to the two men, the proof seems to the lay 
mind to be conclusive that the spirit of Henry Jones is 
really alive and talking. Yet this all important conclu- 
sion is drawn from the mere fact that a medium has done 
some talking or writing. If there were no mystery or 
wonder in the communication, there would be nothing at 
all to it. We declare that the communication is born and 
lives wholly in the subconscious faculty of the medium. 

This assumes that the latter is honest. 

In the case of one who is free from the charge of fraud, 
the subconscious faculty does its work only when the mind 
of the medium is dead to all knowledge of what is being 
said or done. This makes it a senseless agent. That there 
are genuine mediums of this kind, there is no doubt. But 
as the medium is necessary to the manifestation, and as the 



42 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

communications are always chaotic and in every instance 
more or less silly, it is not fair to charge them to the spirits 
of the dead, but to the subconscious powers of the agent 
employed. This is the true explanation of every supposed 
case of communication between the dead and the living. 

Through a hundred assistants, each of whom secured the 
aid of many others, covering a period of nearly thirty years, 
the Psychic Society has investigated in the most thorough 
manner no less than 7,682 cases of attempts to send infor- 
mation of spirit life after death. They were cases of 
agreements between the closest friends when alive, where 
one died, and the other thought that some effort was being 
made to send some word. 

Over six thousand of these cases were disposed of by 
ascertaining that mediums had been consulted, with some 
slight results; but fraudulent practices made the work of 
the mediums worthless. 

In nearly all the other cases, the appearance was through 
dreams. One woman disclosed the manner in which the 
dream would bring on the manifestation. She was alone 
one evening, and wondered why her sister who had been 
dead for seven months did not try to communicate with 
her. She fell asleep in her chair, and dreamed that the 
sister stood before her in form as of old but radiant with 
the light of the new world. She took her hand and talked 
with her. But it was all a dream, and dreams are the 
work of the subconscious faculty, which performs wonders 
under the operation of natural laws not known to ordi- 
nary consciousness. 

No dream can be taken as evidence of spirit life. 

Yet in the case of the mother who was twice awakened 
in one night by seeing the face of her living daughter who 
was making two attempts to commit suicide, and who was 
found after the second dream in a bath room unconscious 
from the effects of gas, the direct work of the subconscious 
faculty is clearly manifested. No spirit law is involved in 



PRE-MORTEM COMPACTS 43 

such occurrences. Premonitions are common and they too 
are the work of the subconscious faculty. But they happen 
between the living and the living. 

A man whose wife had died claims to have seen her 
walking the street in front of him, and passing him at 
right angles. She gave a quick turn of her head in his 
direction and vanished in thin air. He went to his home 
and repeated the occurrence to his three sons, telling them 
that he was sure of having seen his wife's spirit. But the 
vision did not indicate that he saw anything more than the 
mirrored form of his wife in his ordinary brain, as is ex- 
plained in another chapter of this book. Not even the sub- 
conscious faculty was at work in this case. 

In another experience a man claims to have seen the 
spirit of his mother a few days after she died, and she was 
beckoning to him with her hand, as though asking him to 
follow her. He reported to his daughter and wife that 
the vision meant that he was to soon die. But many years 
have since elapsed and he still lives. 

In another case a mother whose child was very ill, being 
told by the doctor that she would probably die very soon, 
prayed for help and in reply the form of her mother ap- 
peared in the room at midnight, and the lips said : " I will 
help you. Cheer up. Your child will not die." This 
seems on its face to be evidence of the existence of spirits, 
but both the sight and the sound could be easily born in 
the ordinary brain under severe nervous strain in waking 
hours; or such experiences could have been dreams. Tired 
brains fall asleep without the knowledge of the sleeper. 
An illustration of this fact is noted in the report of the 
Bishop who saw the spirit of his brother standing close to 
him and talking. The Bishop was asleep in the room 
where four other persons sat reading. They were attracted 
to the sleeper by the snoring. This ceased in a few minutes 
and the man seemed to be passing through a nervous state 
for a second or two when he awoke and declared that he 



44 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

had not slept at all. He even said that he had kept his 
eyes wide open. He was honest but mistaken. Slumber 
comes on so quietly and stealthily at times that it is impos- 
sible to know that it approaches or that it has come and 
gone. 

A few strong cases of agreements made before the death 
of one party have been found, but in every instance a me- 
dium has been employed to bring the supposed dead into 
the presence of the living. The reports from the mystic 
realm have all been incoherent and unsatisfactory; leaving 
a certainty that the brain of the medium was responsible 
for the communications. 

There has not been a verified case of the appearance of 
the spirit to the eyes of a living person. The nearest ap- 
proach to such manifestation has been attended by the 
suspicion of nervous excitement or the dream state; and 
the testimony is therefore unreliable. A fleeting vision may 
be born in the ordinary brain under stress, as in delirium, 
or nervous tension ; and the subconscious faculty may repro- 
duce an endless train of visions under certain conditions. 
Sight and sound are shifting processes of the brain centers, 
always created by the power of the mind even when per- 
fectly normal. 

As an exception to the conclusions of this chapter, we 
must state that the soul in its flight from the body to its 
future home is given the power to manifest itself by vision 
and speech also; but only in a very limited space of time. 
There are thousands upon thousands of instances where 
this has happened ; and to deny them would be to fly into the 
face of what almost every intelligent person knows to be 
the fact. 

A psychic law comes into action in this class of cases, 
and a full chapter will be devoted to its discussion. 

But the soul in transit is not the spirit of the dead in 
the generally accepted use of the term. It is the life im- 
mortal winging its flight to other worlds, nevermore to come 



PRE-MORTEM COMPACTS 45 

to earth or to know of earth unless it shall meet loved ones in 
the hereafter. 

Spiritualism teaches that the spirits live on and on in a 
state of communication with the living. This doctrine is 
absolutely untrue and evidence has been piled high during 
the past few years showing the impossibility of any such 
existence. 

There is no authenticated case of a spirit being on earth 
longer than fifty hours after the death of the body; at least 
not in modern times. It would be impossible to collect to- 
gether over one hundred thousand instances of the depart- 
ing soul having made its passage felt or its form seen in the 
early hours of its flight. The proofs are so abundant that 
they create surprise to one who is starting out in search of 
this class of evidence. 

Let the two kinds of manifestation be kept separate in 
the mind of the reader; otherwise there will be an apparent 
conflict in the accounts concerning them. 




4 6 



CHAPTER VIII. 
PREMONITIONS. 



OT LONG AGO the higher class of Intelli- 
gent persons rejected all beliefs in what are 
known as premonitions. They had two rea- 
sons for discarding them. One was the sup- 
position that there had never been any satis- 
factory evidence to sustain the claim that 
people could receive warnings in advance of 
an actual occurrence. They argued that telepathy was 
merely the operation of the subconscious mind having the 
power to see happenings through channels other than the 
ordinary senses ; and, as an event prior to its happening could 
not be seen by any faculty, there could be no premonition 
of it. 

This is good reasoning; but proofs that have been secured 
in the past few years, tend to show that it is not in harmony 
with known facts. 

The second reason for discarding such belief, was the 
supposed ill that would fall upon humanity if events could 
be seen ahead of their occurrence. 

In the first records made by this society we find the fol- 
lowing assertion: " It is the unanimous opinion of the mem- 
bers of the Psychic Society that fore-warnings and premo- 
nitions, as well as fortune-telling and forecasting of human 
history in every phase, are without foundation either in fact 
or principle, and must be regarded as species of error and 
charlatanry." 

This view has been changed to some extent. A mass of 



PREMONITIONS 47 

evidence has been secured, and it has all been sifted to the 
substantial facts as we now present them: 

1. There are many well sustained accounts of premoni- 
tions; so many and so well proved, that we cannot deny any 
longer our belief in them. 

2. The same is true of fore-warnings. They undoubt- 
edly occur. 

3. Special attention has been given to the problem of 
fortune-telling. There are some cases where the future has 
been correctly foretold, but they are few and of insub- 
stantial character. We therefore assert that fortune-telling 
is largely a matter of guesswork, coincidence or trickery. 

We obtained a stenographic report of one sitting where 
the fortune-teller, a woman of great success in her pro- 
fession, convinced a United States Senator of her genuine 
powers, for the reason that she told him things that were 
true in his past, which she had no means of knowing; yet 
. so skilfully had she led him on in conversation that she had 
drawn from him the very facts that she related. To this 
skill was added some telepathic and clairvoyant powers that 
enabled her to make the chain complete. When the steno- 
graphic report was shown to him, he recalled every part 
of it, and said : " I remember now that these things were 
said, but they had so completely escaped me that I would 
have sworn that they were never uttered." He thereupon 
lost all faith in the woman's gifts. 

A first class fortune-teller must possess the power of 
physical telepathy to begin with. Then there must be the 
ability to read the face, the form, the make-up and appear- 
ance of the client. There must be a good mind for guess- 
ing. The art of asking suggestive questions which will set 
the client talking, is also essential. One correct guess wins 
the faith of the individual, after which everything is easy. 

Under such a course of training as Universal Magnetism 
almost any person might acquire the power of substitution, 
which means the ability to so thoroughly sympathize with 



48 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

the client that his personality gives way to that of the 
fortune-teller. As soon as the substitution is made the 
thoughts, feelings, hopes and fears of the client are all taken 
into the immediate life of the other, and so known. Great 
genius could carry this process to an unlimited extent, but 
it would require time and hard work to so school oneself 
to do all this. On the other hand any person however un- 
skilful may do the same thing in lesser degree and win pro- 
portionately. We can cite thousands' of cases where this 
use of sympathy aided by Universal Magnetism has accom- 
plished wonders in countless ways; all helpful to both 
parties. In the family, in the school room, in the business 
and social worlds, in the professions, and in all walks of 
life, this phase of magnetism, noble and uplifting, is doing 
a vast amount of good that could not be done in any other 
way. 

The foregoing suggestions are made here solely to show 
the ease with which a sincere mind may be made to believe 
in forecasts of life that are unfounded and unreliable. 

Premonitions, however, are in a different class. 

They look into the future, but only a brief distance. 

The cases that have proved to be genuine are too many 
to be cast aside as coincidences. They are actual fore- 
w r arnings, but they have relationship only to the immediate 
future. 

There is not a case where satisfactory proof has been 
obtained showing a premonition that related to a coming 
event at some distant period in the future. If any person 
claims to have evidence on this point we will have it fully 
investigated. Of course it is true that many people really 
believe in length of premonitions, as they have had experi- 
ences that seem to sustain that view. But each instance of 
the kind is faulty in its chain of proof. 

The sensitive condition of the nervous system leads to 
many impressions that are built in the imagination, so that 



PREMONITIONS 49 

the party who is most in interest is most unfitted to tes- 
tify. 

The following account is a typical illustration of an 
authentic case of premonition: 

An engine-driver on a fast express train was killed along 
a straight piece of track by a blow from the end of a stick 
of timber on a freight car that was standing on another 
track. The timber had swung around far enough to reach 
the engineer as he looked out of his cab window. 

This kind of occurrence was unusual. It had never hap- 
pened to his knowledge during a period of thirty years. On 
the morning of the day that he was killed, he awoke from 
his bed with a sudden spring, saying he had just passed 
through a bad dream. He related the events to his wife, 
and said that he had seen the straight road, and the freight 
train on a siding with the lumber out of place on one of 
the cars. He received a severe blow on the head that felled 
him to the floor of his cab. The wife related this dream to 
her sister. Not one of them seemed to think it a serious 
fore-warning, and so he went to his work as usual. But 
before the hour of the accident, the wife called upon her 
pastor and related the full details of the dream, and she said 
it was depressing her so much that she could not think of 
anything else. 

We had the testimony of the wife, her sister, the min- 
ister and his family all of whom stated that they knew of 
the details of the dream for hours before the death oc- 
curred. 

Here is proof of a law different from that of telepathy 
in the physical sense. The latter is limited to physical 
happenings, and can portray only those things that exist 
in mind or in fact. On the other hand psychic telepathy 
discloses the events that are close at hand, and yet that have 
not yet occurred. 

It seems that somewhere in the universe there are beings 
who know what is about to happen to the detriment of 
4 



50 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

humanity, and who are interested enough to send warning 
in time to save them. No human agency and no human 
law can accomplish this end. 

A wife had gone to bed and was almost asleep when she 
saw the vision of her son standing before her, extending 
his hands and seeming to ask her to help him. As the 
vision lingered, the form of her husband was added to it, 
and he had an uplifted knife aimed at the boy's heart. She 
sprang out of bed, not knowing where to go. The room 
was as dark as it could be. In her nervousness she failed 
to find a light for some time. While groping in the dark 
she found herself in a store, the shelves of which with their 
contents stood clearly out before her view. 

A match was close at hand. She said she took it from a 
box on the shelf at the store. But when it was lighted, she 
was still in her own home, and bewildered. She dressed 
hurriedly. It was nearly ten o'clock. Out of doors she 
went and sought the services of a policeman. It seemed 
that her husband carried on a business at some distance 
from the house, and the officer referred her to the private 
on that beat. He thought her demented, especially as her 
hair was disheveled, and her eyes showed great excite- 
ment. 

On she went and found the officer. 

He took an immediate interest in the affair and accom- 
panied her to the store. As they reached the outer door 
they found it locked, but the sounds of a quarrel and scuffle 
were heard within. By pounding vigorously on the glass 
panel of the door, they were rewarded by the approach of 
steps and the appearance of the husband and son. It ap- 
pears that the man had made an accusation against the 
young man, and the quarrel followed. But the father, 
being the stronger of the two, had about vanquished the 
boy. He had been drinking, and stood with open knife 
over the form of the son, when the pounding on the door 
caused him to realize what he was about to do. This is 



PREMONITIONS 51 

the version told by son to his mother before she gave him 
any information about the vision that had come to her. 

In the investigation of this case it was proved that the 
woman told the first police officer that she had seen the 
vision of the father about to drive a knife into the boy's 
heart. This was actually related a full half hour before the 
quarrel began. The same story was also told to the second 
officer some time before there was any quarrel. Both the 
father and son stated that they had been on terms of peace 
all that evening, and that the father had just entered the 
store, made the accusation and entered into the scuffle. 

The result of the premonition was that the husband was 
cured of the drink habit. 

The law of physical telepathy sets forth the principle that 
the subconscious faculty is able to convey information of 
any physical transaction that is occurring or that ever oc- 
curred ; as well as any sight present or past. In this case 
the woman saw something that had not happened, but that 
was about to occur. The event had not existed in the 
mind of either the father or the son until it actually began 
to take place. The son did not expect his father at the 
store, and the father did not expect to find him there. He 
was passing, saw the light within, and entered to ascertain 
what the young man was doing there at that time of night. 
Both had keys to the door. 

As there was no possibility of the thought existing in 
the mind of either, the vision could not be ascribed to 
physical telepathy, and therefore was due to the process 
known as psychic telepathy, which is a knowledge of what 
is to occur in the immediate future. Some power desired to 
save the life of the young man, and so sent premonition to 
his mother. 

There is a class of similar cases that prove this law to be 
a true one. Nor is it difficult to find a constant stream of 
instances of premonition going on at the present day. 

The Society was unusually desirous of ascertaining how 



52 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

long in advance a warning had come to any person. The 
cases that admit of the best proof all tend to show that 
premonitions do not arrive very long ahead of the occur- 
rence. They are almost always in dreams or in half wak- 
ing moments; but nevertheless as substantial as if they had 
come when persons are wide awake. 

There are more than forty records of visions that have 
appeared in broad day light, passing like a flash and leav- 
ing one dazed with wonderment. Nearly all of these re- 
lated to the death of the person to whom they appeared. 

A man saw before him a street car and thought he saw 
his mangled form beneath its wheels. He told two friends 
of what he had seen, and both advised him to keep away 
from car lines. It was early in the forenoon when the 
vision came to him. About five o'clock in the afternoon of 
the same day he was struck by a street car and killed in 
the manner in which the apparition had manifested itself. 
It is supposed that the incident had escaped his mind, and 
that he paid no attention to the warning. 

Premonitions sometimes come in voices, but the voices are 
in dreams as far as we have been able to ascertain. 

Several lines of proof are secured by the investigation of 
premonitions of deaths. They show: 

i. That psychic telepathy is at work. 

2. That some power has knowledge of events that are 
about to occur. 

3. That this power cannot be physical. 

4. That this power must be psychic. 

5. That such psychic power must exist beyond the earth. 

6. That some agency in heaven is interested in human 
affairs, and seeks to protect its favorites of earth. 

7. That the eternal principle of free choice is left open 
to humanity, which prevents the psychic power from inter- 
vening to actually save the life. 

8. No instance is known to the Society of a premonition 
of death having been obeyed and the event avoided. 



PREMONITIONS 53 

It would seem as if some person would give heed to the 
warning, and so be saved from the casualty. There are, 
however, cases of general forebodings that have been obeyed. 
They have been vague and indefinite. Many of them have 
come in time to save lives. In a clear case of a citizen of 
Cleveland, Ohio, who was about to take a train for New 
York City, it appears that he was seized with a chilly sen- 
sation whenever his thoughts turned to the trip. He told 
his wife of the strange feelings, and she advised him to 
take another train. It so happened that there was a wreck 
and he would have been in it had he gone at the time he 
first planned. This kind of case is quite common, and 
there is abundant proof of the warnings having saved life. 
But no direct vision has appeared, as in the approach of 
death. 

The distinction between the two classes of cases is a 
broad one and should be given careful thought. 

But in both lines of occurrence it is clear that some power 
has knowledge of what is to happen in advance of the fact, 
and before it has been crystallized into a substantial trans- 
action or even considered in any human mind. 

Here is solid evidence of a psychic power. 



54 



CHAPTEER IX. 




<|vlll^«IVIvl»l.l«IVIVlVIVlvlVlVlvl vlvi .Ivl ,rvlvlVlvl/l *"l . I , I ^ l~l v l~ "l"7l V l~ ~l~lT l\ 

I DOWNFALL OF SPIRITUALISM. 1 

§§ # 

- f_l_^l - I I " 1 " I - 1 t - | ■ T - 1 !- I "J_! • I • I l_l J_I__! 1^1/ 1^.1 ' '_'_' ' '_■' I ' I ' '_'_'"" I/I/-' <l> 
/IVtN/IS/IV I .1 - l", I .I",".", I .. I v I ulvl » l.l.lvl .1 v I - I n, l . I y I v I Jl v I . I . I ^ Ivl.l v I - IV I V I VI VtVI VI Si\ 

LARGE MAJORITY of the people who 
think they believe in spiritualism, do not do 
so in fact. They are not deceived, but have 
made the wrong connections. The most in- 
telligent of their number admit that much of 
the work of mediums is fraudulent, but they 
know that some is genuine; and they rightly 
cling to the axiom that one truth is sufficient no matter 
how much falsehood it travels with. A dollar's worth of 
gold in a ton of earth is worth a dollar, no matter how 
little the dirt is worth. 

This is the situation with the so-called science of spirit- 
ualism. 

There is a ton of fraud, and a mite of truth. 
But the truth, no matter how firmly established, is not 
the kind of proof th.at must be required to make clear the 
fact that human beings are able to hold communications 
with the spirits of the dead. 

This chapter will be devoted to the latest and best known 
results obtained from a perfectly fair and impartial inves- 
tigation of the claims made in behalf of such doctrines. 

What is stated herein is not only the truth, but is con- 
curred in by all qualified experts who have gone into the 
analysis of the subject to the fullest extent. Opinions and 
theories are given no standing. If there is not a clear 
line of proof, and a psychic law to sustain it, the matter is 
left undecided. 



DOWNFALL OF SPIRITUALISM 55 

Spiritualism has always relied upon physical manifesta- 
tions. 

There is a constant suggestion of what is to occur. Per- 
sons who are present, being nervous and more or less ex- 
cited, fall under the influence of this suggestive power. The 
familiar mask seems to them to be the exact face of father, 
mother, sister, brother or friend, looking out of the spirit 
world upon them. 

Luminous phenomena have recently been produced by 
Dr. J. Maxwell of Bordeaux, France, that seem to baffle 
all attempts at explanation except on the theory of being 
ethereal bodies ; but they have not been as thoroughly inves- 
tigated as they will be in the near future. If they should 
be pronounced free from fraud and deception, they will 
merely take rank as additional proofs of the assertions made 
in the latter part of this book. 

Prof. Charles Richet has recorded an extraordinary case 
of materialization that was obtained under open conditions 
where fraud was seemingly impossible. Sir William 
Crookes gave personal testimony of physical manifestations, 
but his case comes under the conditions described in the 
chapter concerning ghostly violence. 

One class of cases seems to be free from the possibility of 
fraud. The medium will cause a cloud to issue from the 
side of the body, and a spirit will appear in the cloud. Yet 
in October, 1906, a showman by name of Maskelyne at St. 
George's Hall, London, reproduced the whole phenomena, 
and admitted that it was done by trickery. 

Editor William T. Stead of London announced to the 
world that he had found in a Mrs. Mellon, an English 
medium, the only person of undoubted materializing fac- 
ulty and undoubted character in the United Kingdom. 
Shortly after a seance held at Melbourne, Australia, a skep- 
tical individual in the audience seized the materialized spirit, 
and found it to be Mrs. Mellon herself. The investigating 
skeptic was assaulted by several persons present, but he held 



56 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

on to the spirit, and thus the only medium of materializing 
faculty and character in the United Kingdom was caught 
red-handed. 

In addition to gauze masks, there are robes so thin and 
light that they can be folded and concealed in the hollow 
metal heel of the shoe worn by the medium, or the con- 
cealed hollow belt that is fastened to the inside of a skirt, 
or in hollow legs of chairs, or seats. One robe that con- 
tained yards of cloth, was folded small enough to be shut 
up in a watch case. A dozen masks may be so attached 
to the clothing as to seem a part of it. All is gauze, light 
and flimsy. They are dipped in phosphorous paint thinned 
with turpentine, and then perfumed and dried. 

Different heights of spirits are shown by various tricks. 
A child was portrayed by a stooping attitude in one case 
assisted by a proper mask; and in another instance by hold- 
ing out a mask with a small robe dangling from it. The 
excited person in the audience who imagined the child to be 
the spirit of one whom she had lost a year before, sprang 
to embrace it, and found only the mask and the gauze held 
by the extended hand of the medium. 

The tied hands and legs of mediums that are so quickly 
released are manipulated in the well known manner em- 
ployed by the Davenports, who were assisted by the Ma- 
gician Kellar, who has reproduced about every manifesta- 
tion ascribed to mediums. 

The cabinets often contain hollow doors, or hollow base- 
boards in which many things may be hidden. 

In one series of seances in which the medium remained 
tied all the time, and in full view of those present, seven 
others assisted by coming down through a trap door in the 
ceiling above, entering the cabinet, one after the other. 
One of them was dressed wholly in black, with a black 
mask over his face, but the right arm was coated with 
luminous paint. He walked among the people, writing 
messages with the arm, which seemed to float in space, as the 



DOWNFALL OF SPIRITUALISM 57 

body was almost invisible. He thrust these messages in the 
pockets of persons and gave other evidences of being a real 
spirit. 

One of the most convincing manifestations of recent years 
is that in which a ball of light gradually enlarges and pro- 
duces a full size spirit. Many persons have been converted 
to a belief in the spirit doctrine by such a display. But the 
method has been exposed. The person who acted the part 
of the ball of light was a woman who was let down from a 
room above into the cabinet. She was clad in white with 
a black mask. She thrust a rounded foot under the curtain 
of the cabinet and the light being concentrated on this white 
object made it shine like a ball. Then she gradually thrust 
the lower part of her dress under the curtain until her 
crouched form look like an enlarged ball of white. Finally 
she stood erect and laid aside the black mask, making it 
appear as if her head was the last part of the body to grow 
into place. The process was reversed, until she had again 
shrunk to the small white ball and wholly disappeared. 

Hereward Carrington, a member of the famous English 
Society for Psychical Research, and also of the independent 
American Branch and a member of the Council of the 
American Institute for Psychical Research, has devoted 
many years to an almost unbroken series of investigations, 
and sums up his knowledge in the following statement: 

1. He started out in cold skepticism, expecting to find 
everything psychic to be fraudulent. 

2. He now believes thoroughly in telepathy. 

3. He now believes thoroughly that some trance mani- 
festations, some clairvoyance, some premonitions, most hyp- 
notic phenomena, alterations of personality, and subcon- 
scious mental activities are absolutely proved beyond cavil 
or doubt of any kind. 

He says also that it is possible that genuine materializa- 
tion exists as a fact in nature. To use his own words: 
" There must be some force in the world as yet unknown." 



58 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

It is an indisputable fact that all the manifestations of 
mediums have been reproduced by magicians; and that 
mediums are either themselves magicians or employ that 
profession to aid them. 

The Psychic Society had in its employ a man not over 
thirty years of age, who was at the same time in the em- 
ploy of mediums. The latter were converting skeptics by 
the scores every year to a belief in spiritualism, on the 
ground that their manifestations and materializations could 
not possibly be the work of human agencies, and must there- 
fore be accepted as the product of spirit powers. 

The world of advanced investigation has come to the 
conclusion that the reasoning faculties are not endowed 
with the ability to draw conclusions from any supernatural 
phenomena, for the latter are not in the same realm as the 
mind. A person whose experience has been confined to one 
world cannot, without a taste of another world, pass judg- 
ment on the operations thereof. The reasoning powers are 
not qualified to settle the claims of any religion; and the 
age of reason is an era wholly deprived of any right to sit 
as arbitrator over a world that it cannot even enter, to say 
nothing of its helplessness to become a ruler of the same. 

Of all the erring faculties, the process of reason is the 
weakest and most unreliable. The same proofs and the 
same chain of reasoning can be made to lead to exactly op- 
posite conclusions in the hands of skilful thinkers. Take 
the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
and the Courts of highest appeal in the various States, as 
examples of this faulty operation of the human mind. The 
same state of facts will lead by the soundest kind of rea- 
soning to results that are in violent conflict all along the 
line. 

A short time ago a body of able lawyers and keenest 
minded business men who had won gigantic fortunes, spent 
three weeks in dissecting the decisions of the highest court 
in a great State on criminal cases; and as hair-splitting 



DOWNFALL OF SPIRITUALISM 59 

followed hair-splitting, and discrepancy followed discrep- 
ancy, they saw nothing but ridicule in their analysis of 
those decisions that are famous all over the world for their 
microscopic technicalities. A business man said: "If the 
business of the nation were to be conducted on the same 
mental methods as the business of the courts must be under 
those decisions, every man of sound sense would go out of the 
commercial world into one of dreams. I never realized 
that high courts could split hairs so fine. I always sup- 
posed that the rulings of the courts were made for the 
purpose of simplifying the effort to get at the facts and do 
justice." 

Yet the peculiarity is that those decisions are founded on 
what seems on its face to be good reasoning. The logic 
is invincible. They read nicely as they progress toward 
their conclusions. But it is when those conclusions are 
taken and held up to the admitted facts that the mind re- 
ceives a shock from which it cannot easily recover. 

The highest tribunal in the land, the United States 
Supreme Court, has reversed itself many times on facts 
that are identical, but that have occurred at different peri- 
ods in the political history of the nation ; showing the bias 
of a court that should be free from all such influences. Yet 
the reasoning is perfect, and must stand as a model to the 
end of time of the manner in which the same sign-post can 
guide the mind on the same road in two directions at the 
same time, one diametrically opposite the other. 

Thus we see the infallibility of reason to draw conclu- 
sions from a proved state of facts. 

Take the same conditions in the study of spiritualism. 

Suppose it is proved that actual knocking is heard, 
and that the knocks respond to questions that are asked; 
thereby securing replies to almost any line of inquiry that 
may be made. One person says that this is proof that a 
spirit did the knocking. But the fact is that there is no 
connection between a spirit and the manifestation. There 



60 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

are twenty better explanations of the knocking than that. 

Now suppose that the slate-writing were true, despite 
the fact that it has been proved to be a clever trick. The 
slate is made to write the words: "I am John Smith. I 
died eight years ago. I have been in the spirit world 
ever since." Suppose all that were actually written with- 
out fraud upon a slate. Does it prove that the assertions 
are true? There are a score of explanations for such writ- 
ing, better than the theory that a spirit produced the 
words. One man says: " It must be true for it says so. 
A spirit would not lie. If it would not lie, then what is 
written is the work of a spirit, because it says so." Here 
the reasoning is wholly faulty. The mind has the wrong 
connections. A young man tells his sweetheart that she is 
the first girl that he ever loved. She carries the state- 
ment in triumph to her mother, who asks her why she be- 
lieves it to be true, and she replies : " I am sure that I am 
the only girl he ever loved because he told me so." 

When we come to the study of psychic telepathy, we 
will see the source of all the so-called communications with 
departed spirits. 

As to the methods of writing on the inside surface of 
slates that are securely tied together, we will state that 
such writing is being done to-day by mixing iron filings 
with chalk and mucilage, slipping a small lump of the same 
between the slates, and then using on the finger outside a 
magnet that will cause the lump to write. Another method 
is to control the tying of the slates so that a long piece of 
thin wire can be slipped between them, and move a tiny 
bit of chalk over the surface. 

The first qualifications of a medium seem to be that he 
must possess the agility of a magician, perform slight of 
hand with ease, and be a genius at invention or imitation. 
There are scores of fakirs over the world who can do amaz- 
ing things that cannot be accounted for by the first thought 
except on the thory of the supernatural. 



DOWNFALL OF SPIRITUALISM 61 

In closing this chapter, we wish to mention one kind 
of manifestation that seems most puzzling. It has been 
sufficiently proved to be now accepted as a fact. It is the 
vibration that will sometimes concentrate on a given spot 
especially in the dark hours of night, when a person is 
alone. In one case a man heard it in his room at the top 
of his door, and a family overhead was awakened by it. 
He got a chair and stood close to the spot where the vi- 
brations were occurring, and saw the trembling of the door. 
This manifestation was repeated for one hundred nights 
and then ceased, never to return. Mr. Carrington, to 
whom we have referred, and whose testimony is regarded 
by his scientific brethren as fully reliable, says: 

" In considering the evidence in favor of and against 
' raps ' I find that there is a certain weight of evidence in 
favor of their genuine character. But the principal rea- 
son that I believe that raps are sometimes genuine is that 
I myself have obtained them in my own apartment, where 
I live alone — no other person being present at the time. 
For four or five weeks rappings would begin in my room 
about IO o'clock and continue until I went to sleep and 
would increase in violence at the time I went to bed. They 
did not sound like creaks of the furniture, but like knocks 
made through thick cloth and upon woodwork. One night 
when they were louder than usual and keeping me awake 
I got out of bed and located them on my mantel-piece, 
where I could feel their vibrations. It was a queer sensa- 
tion to feel them coming at the very spot I was intently 
watching. An unexplainable feeling of apprehension would 
often come just before such raps would be heard there 
and in other parts of the room. Several other per- 
sons distinctly heard them on various occasions. One night 
I received them by concentrating my attention while await- 
ing a communication. Once I placed upon my couch a 
package of papers, fastened together with rubber bands. 
Instantly there was a loud, quick snap, just as if the 



62 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

band had been lifted and allowed to fly back. During 
the time the raps were loudest I would feel a distinct pres- 
ence in the room or in the hallway, and once during these ap- 
parent hauntings a person occupying a flat on the same floor 
with me and having no inkling of my experiences, suddenly 
felt this presence, unsuggested. These raps have now ceased 
and 1 am well pleased that they have." 

That such phenomena are the result of a power within 
the human body will be seen later on in our work. But, in 
the absence of such proof, no one is justified in ascribing 
the cause to spirits. 

The dead depart for one of two purposes: either to take 
flight from this earth and all its scenes, or else to pass 
again through the experiences of earthly existence. In the 
pages of the second division of this volume, these facts will 
be clearly shown. 

But the dead, after the spirit has freed itself from the 
body and its environments, are forever helpless as far as 
any communication with the living is concerned. 

It is to show this utter helplessness on the part of the 
departed souls, that this book is written; or, at least, that is 
one of its great purposes. 

Facts are facts. 

They are more than recorded statements; they are actual 
living things. 

Let every person who feels willing to know the truth, 
lay aside all preconceived beliefs and come into close study 
of the subject for the sole end of learning the facts, no 
more and no less. To close the mind against any other 
belief than the one which has been nurtured until it has 
become a second nature, will not advance any man or 
woman along the royal highway of knowledge. 

Let us have the truth. 

Many persons who thought they believed in spiritualism 
will see, before this book is closed, that they have uncon- 
sciously had faith in the true thing under another name. 



63 



CHAPTER X. 



. '..':.' :.'.:.' ~k 




| THE SOUL IN PASSAGE. 1 

^ i 



OME THINGS are so well known that 
they afford no room for doubt, and very little 
for discussion. While it is quite well estab- 
lished that the spirits of the dead do not live 
on and maintain communications with the liv- 
ing, it is a proved fact that the soul in its 
flight makes its presence known at times and 
places, on its way out from the environments of earth. Each 
individual case does not exert an influence on the mind and 
belief of the general public ; but when the authentic instances 
are collected, they make an amazing mass of testimony that 
cannot fail to settle a question that should not be in doubt 
even in this era of speculative thought. 

If any Psychic Society were to devote itself to this one 
phase of the study of such phenomena, it would have but 
one verdict to report. Its chief work has been assigned to 
the investigation of ghosts, or the spirits that live on, as it 
has been claimed, long after death. 

The departure of the soul is manifested, if at all, to 
those who are interested in the individual from which it 
has gone forth. This being true, it follows that its mani- 
festations are confined to a close relationship or friendship. 
Such ties are sacred, and the experiences are rarely ever 
paraded before the public. They are both the most con- 
vincing and the most obscure of proofs. 

In the beginning of this account let the distinction be un- 
derstood between the ghosts and sprits of the dead, remain- 
ing in communication for months and years after life has 



64 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

ceased in the body, and the passage of the soul in its flight 
from earth. There is a vast gulf between the two classes 
of cases. In the first class it has been shown that there 
is no proof of and no possibility for any ghost or spirit to 
continue in communication with the living. Every psychic 
law is against it, and not one tangible fact of any kind has 
been sustained that proves it. 

On the other hand the soul in its passage makes itself 
known in various ways for a brief period, and then is gone 
forever. Its fate is given many chapters of consideration in 
the second division of this treatise. 

There is no field of psychic investigation where so much 
is known of so small a stage of the existence of the soul. 
By the use of the word much the idea to be conveyed is 
that there is an overwhelming mass of testimony on this 
brief span of spirit life. 

Not every person has had evidence of the passing of the 
soul. 

It is possible that not more than one person in a hun- 
dred, if as many, can state with certainty that manifestations 
of this kind have occurred. But the total number of per- 
sons who can so testify is, nevertheless, very great. Mem- 
bers of investigating committees have not in the beginning 
of their work directed their attention to the claims of those 
who have had evidence of the flight of the soul; but they 
soon find that such evidence is the most abundant of any 
that bears upon these problems. The result is that they 
soon learn to take for granted the fact that the soul does 
pass out of the body in a way that can be understood by all 
classes of people. Scientists who had no opinions on the 
subject before they came across this line of testimony, are 
quickly converted to a fixed belief in the fact. 

What transactions have convinced them? 

A man who was at work in 1906 in his place of business 
at the hour of ten o'clock in the morning, with the bright 
sun shining in the room, saw the form of his wife enter- 



THE SOUL IN PASSAGE 65 

ing at the door. She came directly to him, but said noth- 
ing. He supposed that she had come for money with which 
to do some shopping, and he pulled forth two bills to give 
to her. But she had gone. Three others in the room saw 
him take out the money, and noted the look of alarm on his 
face when he was about to hand it to her. 

" That was my wife," he said. 

They told him that no one had been there. But he ran 
to the door and called loudly to her. In distress he put 
on his hat and coat to go to his home, when a messenger 
brought the news that his wife had been killed by an auto- 
mobile as she was about to pass in at the gate to her home. 
The car had left the road in making a sudden turn at a 
speed of a steam locomotive, and, dashing on the sidewalk, 
had crushed out the life of the woman. 

She had been dead not more than two minutes when the 
vision entered the husband's office. 

This kind of an occurrence is common. It seems that the 
spirit is helpless to speak. It cannot be accounted for on 
the theory of the subconscious power of the person visited, 
for the process is the reverse of that. 

A woman was walking along a public highway on a 
bright afternoon and saw her sister running hard towards 
her. As they met, the sister stopped, held out her hand 
which was very white, looked with eyes that were large, 
full and melting, into the eyes of the woman, and was no 
more. Two passers-by noted the fact that the woman had 
stopped, and that she was evidently in trouble. They ad- 
dressed her when they saw that she was faint. But it was 
clearly established that she showed no signs of being faint 
until after she had stopped. She told her story to them 
and took their addresses, and they received hers, as it was 
the desire of all to know what the vision portended. That 
night a telegram came from a city four hundred miles away, 
telling of the death of the sister that had occurred at about 
the moment of the vision. 
5 



66 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

The time is important as it shows the rapidity with which 
a soul may move. 

Another fact is important. The woman who saw the 
vision was east of the sister's home. In view of the uni- 
versal fact that the spirits move in an easterly direction, it 
is well to note the relationship between this point of the 
compass and the other operations of nature. 

A physician who had lived all his life in New York and 
most of it in New York City, and who held prominent po- 
sitions in medical organizations, lost his wife. She had a 
sister living in Brooklyn, east of New York. At the hour 
of her death, according to letters written to the author by 
the doctor, the passage of some unusual vitality made its 
course through the city, giving evidence at the homes of 
several dear frinds, and finally appearing to a living sister 
across the bridge. Investigation proved that every detail 
of the account was true. 

A man died in the city of Washington, D. C, and his 
form appeared in London, then in Paris, then in Rome, 
and finally in Calcutta, India, all in a space of ten hours. 
The vision was so distinct in each case that the time was 
noted, as some accident was feared. They all compared 
notes afterward, and the time was adjusted to that at 
Washington, showing a lapse of ten hours from the time 
of the death there before the final appearance at Calcutta. 
There was a lapse of but thirty minutes from the demise 
to the vision in London ; then a lapse of three hours be- 
tween the presence in London and that in Paris. Two 
hours and ten minutes afterward the vision appeared in 
Rome, and a little more than four hours later it was in 
Calcutta. 

These different periods in time indicate that the spirit 
had the power to remain in one place for a while. If this 
is so, where is its abode, and how does it busy itself? 

An officer of the English army died while visiting a dis- 
tant relative in Berlin. Almost nineteen hours later his 



THE SOUL IN PASSAGE 67 

presence was distinctly seen by three fellow officers in Lon- 
don. On its face this shows that the spirit moved in a 
westerly direction. But a letter from Bombay, India, ar- 
rived in due course of time, stating that the vision was seen 
in that city. The date and hour were fixed beyond doubt, 
and they proved conclusively that the spirit had moved in an 
easterly direction, having been in Bombay within four hours 
after death, and thence showing itself in London fifteen 
hours after that time. The course must, therefore, have 
been easterly, and the spirit nearly traversed the earth. 

A man in Washington, D. C, whose nephew was in office 
in the same city, received a telegram from his sister asking 
if anything had happened to the young man, who was her 
son. The despatch said nothing further. It arrived over 
the wires at 9 132 in the morning. It left New Haven at 
8:13 the same afternoon. A letter was mailed soon after 
the telegram was sent, saying that the mother while dressing 
in her bedroom that morning looked out the window and 
saw her son coming across the lawn. He staggered and 
fell to the ground. Calling to another person in the house 
she told him to hurry out and help the young man as he 
had come home sick and was lying on the grass. When she 
looked out again he was not there, but she supposed that 
he had arisen and found his way into the house. A search 
resulted in nothing but deep mystery. The mother at once 
surmised that the sight she saw was a vision of her son, and 
she sent the telegram to Washington for information. 

The man who received it called as soon as possible at 
the boarding place of his nephew. They said that the 
young man had not been seen that morning. Search was 
made and he was found in his room still in bed. Physi- 
cians were summoned who stated that his death had oc- 
curred early that morning. The mother fixed the time of 
seeing the vision as about ten minutes past seven, as she 
arose promptly at seven and had but partly dressed. 

In this instance the spirit moved in a northerly direction, 



68 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

but to the east. It is not possible to assert that had the 
death occurred in Connecticut, and the mother been in 
Washington, the spirit would have taken flight around the 
whole world in order to have made the visit at Washington ; 
but the chances are that it would have done that or not 
appeared at all. In all the cases investigated there is 
nothing to indicate that such a flight would not be taken. 

Another army officer died in Lyons, France, and his spirit 
appeared in Manchester, England, within seven hours. In 
that period of time, it was seen in Egypt and also in China, 
but in successive passage, showing that it did not manifest 
itself simultaneously at any two places, but maintained a 
journey. 

All authentic accounts of the passage of the soul have con- 
formed to this habit of traveling in an easterly direction, 
deviating to the north or south at will, but not reversing the 
direction. 

There are over three hundred verified cases of visions 
of persons who have died in India appearing in England. 
In most of them there have been no middle stations or stop- 
ping places between India and England, and the first 
thought would be, if considered at all, that the flight had 
been westerly. But in a few cases there have been inter- 
vening visions of the same spirit, and these prove that the 
flight was easterly all the way. This warrants the asser- 
tion that all the other journeys have conformed to the 
natural law of an easterly flight. 

The earth revolves on its axis in an easterly direction. 
This makes the sun seem to rise in the east and set in the 
west. The earth makes its ^annual course around the sun 
in an easterly direction. This fact is shown by the stars 
and constellations all rising in the eastern sky. The moon 
revolves around the earth in an easterly direction. She is 
seen in the west as a crescent; but night after night she 
travels more and more away from the west, going to her 
eastern home. 



THE SOUL IN PASSAGE 69 

The sun throws off its light and fire in an easterly di- 
rection and the planets move on their orbits also in an east- 
erly course. The solar system is making its journey in the 
same harmonious way around the other systems of the sky. 

All life is directly derived from the sun. All vitality 
springs from that giant orb. Whatever has come to man 
on earth, whether in substance or in psychic character, has 
been donated by the sun. All the light and heat of the 
earth is borrowed. There is harmony in the heavens. 
Suns, planets, satellites and star-dust all move in one stream 
of flight, trending to the east; and in their sweep the soul 
is very likely engulfed. Ether is the universal atmosphere 
of the entire sky; and, as the soul is ethereal, it probably 
has the power to assume inconceivable speed in its passage. 

In ninety-five per cent, of the cases investigated, the 
parties involved have been blood relations or husband and 
wife. In the other five per cent, they have been close 
friends. In no case has there been a manifestation from the 
spirit of a stranger or a mere acquaintance or ordinary 
friend. Two men who were closely associated in study 
were seperated by the death of one, and his spirit came in a 
very distinct manner to the survivor. 

This occurred one minute after death. 

Three women in a small village were allied in church 
work for many years, and had become fast friends. One 
of them died at a hospital to which she had been carried in 
her last sickness. The two others were at their homes nine 
miles away, each alone in her room, the houses being about 
two hundred yards apart. When their friend had gone 
to the hospital, they were assured that she would get well 
and be about in a few weeks. The demise occurred at 
fourteen minutes past nine. One of the survivors sat in 
her room winding her watch, which was afterwards found 
to be three minutes fast. As she held the watch in her 
hand the spirit of the dead woman, or the form itself as 
though living, entered and stood before the surprised be- 



7 o THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

holder. The watch stopped at eighteen minutes past nine, 
or one minute after the death. 

" How did you get here? " she asked. 

No reply came, but still the woman saw the face and 
form, and the well known dress ; and, as she sprang for- 
ward to greet her, the vision receded, not by steps, but by a 
gliding motion, and left the room at the wall. 

Calling another person in the house, the frightened 
woman told what had happened, and decided to call at once 
on the other friend, who lived about six hundred feet 
away. 

It seems that the latter had begun preparations for re- 
tiring, and was alone in her room, seated on the edge of the 
bed. She turned to place something on the pillow when 
she felt the touch of a warm hand on her arm. She ut- 
tered a scream that was heard by others in the house, who 
ran to her. Before they came, however, she saw the arm, 
then the head and upper half of the body of the woman 
who had died, and the vision ended in less than four sec- 
onds. The time was two minutes later than that of the 
manifestation at the house of the other woman, or three 
minutes after the death nine miles away. 

Here were facts enough, with witnesses enough to make 
a clear case. But when the first woman reached the house 
of the second and found all in commotion, the entire village 
knew of it, although as yet there had been no news of the 
result at the hospital. Everybody seemed to feel certain 
that the invalid had died, and this fact was confirmed the 
next day. 

Case after case might be cited along the same line. 

One great law seems to run through them all, and that 
is the close proximity of time between the death and the 
manifestation. 

There is not a single instance of a manifestation more 
than fifty hours after the death, and but one in our records 
as late as that. In this case the spirit visited a home four 



THE SOUL IN PASSAGE 71 

times. It was the husband of a woman who had no chil- 
dren and was living in her own house with two sisters. 
The man had died in a railroad wreck. He had been badly 
injured, and his head was bandaged after he was pulled 
from the car. In the effort to save other sufferers, he was 
placed along the bank near the track, and left there for 
hours, when he died. The wreck occurred at a few minutes 
past six in the evening, and he passed away before ten o'clock 
the same night. 

The wife lived in Newark, New Jersey, and the hus- 
band died in the State of Illinois. Making due allowance 
for the difference in time, the first vision appeared ten 
minutes after the demise. The wife was terribly fright- 
ened when it passed out of the room, for she had thought 
her husband had actually returned sooner than he was ex- 
pected, and she rose to greet him, calling him by name. 
Her voice was distinctly heard by her two sisters; then her 
scream followed and brought them to her assistance. 

" He has been killed ! He has been killed ! I just saw 
him! His face was white!" These were her ejaculations 
as she tried to explain to her sisters what she had seen. 

The wife refused to go to bed that night. 

Her sister sat up with her. At about three o'clock in 
the morning the form of the man was seen, this time with 
the bandage about his head. One of the sisters also saw the 
face, and the other sister saw the general outline, although 
dimly. He seemed to appear directly to the wife. He 
tried to speak, but could not. He raised his hand and 
placed it to his head, and closed his eyes, then opened them 
again. The women were paralyzed with fear, and could 
not speak. The vision then passed away. 

Two days afterwards, the man came in a clear white 
vision with a radiant face and bright features, and stood by 
her side. He lifted his hand and pointed upward, and 
vanished. 

At just fifty hours after the time of the death, as the evi- 



72 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

dence afterward showed, he came once more into the pres- 
ence of the three women, and again pointed upward. Com- 
ing somewhat closer he extended both hands to the wife, 
and raised them, adding a gesture of beckoning as though 
asking her to follow him. Then his body floated away, 
and, as she declared, in an upward direction. The final 
visit was witnessed almost wholly by all the three sisters. At 
this time two other relatives were in the house, as the news 
had come of the accident; and they heard the commotion 
that followed. 

The widow expected soon to die and follow him; but 
has lived on for many years. She had no belief in spiritual- 
ism prior to the death of her husband ; but afterward, as he 
did not again appear to her, she sought the aid of mediums, 
but without avail. 

In this case the evidence was trustworthy. 

It should be noted as a constant fact that the manifesta- 
tions of the passing soul do not occur by the aid of mediums ; 
while almost all communications with the spirits of the dead, 
as claimed, are wholly through the agency of mediums. 
This fact alone helps to settle the much discussed question 
of the genuineness of the seances. 

This peculiar phase of the phenomena will be found uni- 
formly present in every case that has been investigated by 
the committees of other psychical societies. The communi- 
cations with the dead require the aid of mediums; but the 
manifestations of the departing spirit are made to the rela- 
tives or friends direct. Thus the honesty of the latter and 
the unreliability of the former can at once be assumed. 

The facts that have been established are as follows: 

1. The spirit of the person who has recently died does 
in fact leave the body. 

2. It takes passage at once. 

3. It may linger about its old haunts or be delayed in 
transit in other places; but never more than a day or two. 

4. It journeys in an easterly direction. 



THE SOUL IN PASSAGE 73 

5. It appears only to those who are related or otherwise 
dear in association or friendship. 

6. It rarely speaks or makes a sound, although there 
are claimed instances of the use of words. 

7. It is seen but briefly, rarely more than a second or two 
of time being the duration of its visit. 

8. Its purpose seems to be a desire to see some one that 
it has loved in life, and to pass on. 

9. The deduction can be safely drawn that the departing 
spirit does in fact come into the presence of those it has 
loved in life, and sees them while in most cases it is not 
seen. 

10. When it is seen by a living person the latter is un- 
doubtedly acutely developed in the subconscious faculty. 
But there is rarely if ever any appearance to those who pro- 
fess to believe in spiritualism. 

11. It may be assumed that the soul visits in a small 
space of time many places where it has lived and many per- 
sons it has known. 

The use of words is rare in such phenomena. 

Some have claimed to have heard the well known voice; 
but we have not found an instance of the combination of 
sight and sound. The spoken words are connected with 
dreams rather than with waking hours. The psychic law 
states that the soul does not employ the language of the 
human voice of flesh ; and this law has been made in order 
to prevent the openness of knowledge that would follow if it 
were possible for the mind of a person to know the thoughts 
of all other persons. 

If you knew everything that was in the minds of other 
people, and they knew all that was in your mind, life on 
earth would be suddenly transformed into a paradise of per- 
fection, for wrong would cease in the instant. Sin and 
crime cannot exist in openness of knowledge. 

It is because nature intends that a free mind and a volun- 
tary virtue shall be developed in the life of every human 



74 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

being, that a wall is built up between the conscious and the 
subconscious minds, and the language of one shall not be 
the language of the other. 

This being true, it follows that the spirit must be de- 
prived of the speech of humanity. 

Sounds, vibrations and various kinds of physical demon- 
strations have attended the flight of the soul; but never 
long after the death of the body. 

In a few cases other senses have been employed. 

A woman who was exceedingly fond of one kind of rose 
relates a very strong manifestation that involved the use of 
the sense of smell. Her husband was more than a thou- 
sand miles away, and was killed in an accident. He had 
been in the habit of bringing her bouquets of the roses that 
pleased her so much. During his absence she had not had 
them, nor had one been in the house. One evening she 
turned sharply about in her chair and inquired who had 
brought those beautiful roses into the room. 

" I was just about to ask you that question," was the 
statement of the person addressed. 

They were indeed very fragrant, but could not be found. 
The wife declared that she knew they were somewhere in 
the room, and a search was made, but the intensity grew more 
and more, while not a sign of a flower could be found. At 
length they traced the odor to a certain place on the dresser 
where a small photograph of the husband was standing in a 
metal frame. 

There was no mistaking the fragrance and the variety of 
rose from which it seemed to emanate. There was no ces- 
sation that evening of the odor; nor the next day. Think- 
ing that it might be some form of deception in which the 
senses of two persons were duped, the wife called in ten 
friends the next day, one at a time, and said nothing to any 
of them on the subject in mind. As each entered the house 
the fragrance was at once noticed, and generally commented 
upon, as it filled the house, although its intensity was con- 



THE SOUL IN PASSAGE 75 

fined to one place. She even had the visitors go to the 
room and locate the place where it seemed to be strongest, 
and not one failed to do so. 

When a suggestion was made that it boded ill, the wife 
laughed down the idea. At noon of the next day the odor 
ceased as suddenly as if it had not existed at all. Not the 
remotest trace remained. In a few minutes a telegram ar- 
rived telling of the fatal accident and the time when it oc- 
curred. This was found to coincide with the time when 
the fragrance of the roses was noticed. 

So rare is such a case that this would have been disposed 
of with little credence were it not for the fact that it cre- 
ated such a stir and involved so many persons. 

Although the fact of the passage of the soul is well es- 
tablished and is believed by even the skeptics in all the 
psychical societies of the world, the further investigation of 
cases should be continued without limit, as too much testi- 
mony cannot be had on the subject. We hope that all 
members of the Psychic Society will participate in furnish- 
ing authentic accounts of such phenomena, provided per- 
sonal knowledge and not hearsay is made the basis of all 
statements. It should be the duty of the member to sift 
by the most rigid methods all stories of such manifestations, 
and enter into a personal investigation of the happenings. 

Much depends on the degree of development of a person 
in the use of the subconscious faculty, in his or her power to 
receive manifestations. It has been stated by a keen ob- 
server that, when more people are able to employ that 
faculty, then more evidence will be forthcoming on this 
subject; for, with subconscious eyes, everything in the uni- 
verse can be seen with absolute clearness. 

The truth is wanted at all times. 

If the Psychic Society can be the means of stimulating the 
determination to secure the truth and nothing but the truth, 
half the mysteries of life will have been driven away. 

When spirits are supposed to hold communications with 



76 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

the living, it is done as has been stated through the agency 
of mediums; and here the subconscious faculty of the medi- 
ums are employed, if they are genuine. About one in a 
thousand is reliable. But no medium professes to know 
what occurs during the trance. The natural voice speaks, 
and natural agencies write or otherwise carry on the com- 
munication. This is a translation of the psychic into the 
ordinary, with the mind of the medium a blank, although 
that mind receives the messages. 

Such a combination is both inconvenient and unsavory. 

On the other hand, the clear mind of the person visited 
receives the communication or witnesses the vision ; thus tak- 
ing away the argument that the manifestation are subcon- 
scious impressions made by the dying person on the mind 
of the recipient, and not the actual spirit on its journey. 

Here is the pivotal point in this study. 

To settle all doubt every member of the Psychic Society 
should aid us in following out all evidence to the farthest 
extreme, for it means much to every living person. 

Some clearly presented facts have been secured which 
make it positive to our minds that the soul does in reality 
take its flight. There is evidence of a progressive condi- 
tion. 

The man who was hurt and so appeared, and whose head 
was bandaged as was shown in his second appearance, and 
who afterwards showed his face radiant and out of pain, 
certainly proved that the soul was progressive. If this is 
true, then the subconscious impression was proof of the 
existence of the soul. 

A person who is alive can make a subconscious impression 
on any other person at any distance. But after death such 
power ceases. This law is well established. 

The vision of a person hurt or in trouble, which is so 
common as to attract little wonder now-a-days, is a pre- 
monition in the form of a subconscious picture or impression. 
It can only be made by the living on the living. Never has 



THE SOUL IN PASSAGE 77 

there been an instance of a dead person impressing a living 
being, except under the laws of the passage of the soul. All 
impressions after death must come from the vitality that has 
left the body, and that is the immortal part of it. 

To discuss this subject thoroughly would invite into this 
work another volume several times the size of this book. 
Any reader who is anxious to go more deeply into it, is re- 
ferred to the higher systems that deal with the laws and 
their proofs in a most convincing manner. 

In closing this chapter we again repeat that the skeptics 
who are connected with the various psychical societies have 
been converted absolutely to the belief in the fact that there 
is a spirit in the human body, which separates from it at the 
moment of death, and takes its journey over the world and 
out into space, never again to return. 

This view is in accord with all the highest forms of re- 
ligion throughout the earth. On the other hand the be- 
liever in spiritualism, or the continuous power of the dead 
to communicate with the living, is regarded as the enemy of 
the church and the adherent to a false religion. These 
views have been submitted to the leading men in all the 
great denominations, and they are heartily endorsed. It is 
a satisfaction to be in harmony with the leading thought of 
the best minds on earth to-day. 

The conclusions reached after the examination of thou- 
sands of cases on this branch of the work of the Psychic 
Society, were all agreed to without in any way seeking light 
from the advanced systems of study on the same subject, to 
which reference is made in the latter part of this volume. 
Thus two roads that pass through entirely different realms, 
converge and come together at the end. Thus double proof 
of the existence and habits of the soul is secured. 

The third great highway of satisfying evidence on the 
same subject is found in the religions of the civilized world. 
These have not been consulted in the investigations, for the 
Society desired to prove its way by the fixed laws of life. 




78 



CHAPTERXI. 

<| /ivivMvivi»ivi»ivi/i,i ^wi„iviv i^i.i.-i.i.i. i~ „ i~iT>TiTi Ti vVTiTTTiTi ~ ~i~i^<N7iv/K 

| BREAKING THROUGH. 



VERYWHERE we see evidences of the 
psychic breaking through the physical. Of 
this there is not the slightest doubt. If it 
were not true there would be no evidence ob- 
tainable by the aid of the physical senses. A 
vision must affect the sense of sight, or it would 
not be seen. It is a well understood fact that 
the psychical world has its own methods of speech and these, 
for good reasons, are not capable of being interpreted into 
the physical world so as to be recognized by any of the five 
senses. 

But some few thoughts and transactions break through at 
times, with the result that the physical senses are shocked 
by what is seen or experienced. If you should see your 
friend whom you know to be a thousand or more miles away, 
coming toward you with extended hand, you would be sur- 
prised. The psychic realm has broken through your sense 
of sight and the result startles you. Were such an experi- 
ence to happen very often, you would cease to find it amaz- 
ing. 

As the sense of sight is founded on ether waves, and as 
the psychic processes are wholly originated in such waves, 
it is natural that the vision should be the agency by which 
the psychic should break through. Sound is founded on 
waves of air, or vibrations of air masses. For this reason, it 
is not possible for ethereal life to make itself manifest to the 
hearing. 

It will be noted that there is no reliable evidence of a 



BREAKING THROUGH 79 

manifestation occurring by the use of sound or touch. 
Every man and woman should understand this law. 

If you hear sounds, be sure they are the result of the cre- 
ations of your nervous system acting on the brain, or else 
are produced by mechanical magnetism, as explained in 
books on that subject. 

If you feel touches, or imagine that you see things move, 
or if they in fact do move, you should be certain that they 
are mechanical or magnetic. 

A highly magnetized man or woman is able to suspend 
the law of gravity, or to cause substances of great weight 
to move easily, or produce sounds of a certain character; 
but such individuals are rare, and their work is the result of 
a special gift. This book does not devote itself to that line 
of investigation, as it belongs to the magnetism series. 

Gravity itself is merely one form of magnetism. 

Touch is the action of substance. 

Sound is the action of molecules, generally of the air. 
- Sight is the action of ether waves. 

If manifestations come in sleep that carry with them the 
sensations of sound and touch, they are purely dreams, in 
which of course no sound or touch actually occurs. But 
if visions come in dreams they may be borne on ether waves, 
and prove genuine, or be the result of imaginings. 

It is satisfying to the mind of the investigator, to learn 
that there is a uniformity of proof showing that all reliable 
psychic phenomena is confined solely to visions, or the use 
of the sense of sight. 

No dependence should be placed in manifestations of sound 
or touch. The sense of smell is supposed to be etheral, but 
the proofs are not fully convincing. Here the Society has 
work to do to follow out such claims as may be made on 
this subject. 

The laws of light and of ether are stated in the next di- 
vision of this book, and they will furnish interesting reading 
on the problems that confront humanity in this era. 



80 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

Thought is known also to be the action of the waves of 
ether. 

Subconscious thought belongs to the ps) r chic mind. 

As is stated later on, it cannot be translated into the 
language of earth, for the reasons given ; but it breaks 
through at times and takes on the ideas and some of the 
words and phrases that are employed in earthly or physical 
communication. 

A spirit, if one existed, would find it impossible to actually 
use the words of our physical speech. This leads to the 
conclusion that all spoken and written words and sentences 
are imaginations or assumptions. 

We think in two channels. 

In one we employ the words and ideas of the physical 
world. 

In the other we are in the psychic world, but prevented 
from crystallizing the thoughts into physical speech, and for 
the following reasons: 

Thought employs ether waves. 

Speech employs physical agencies only, as the sound of 
passing air, the articulation of consonants, and the framing 
of letters by physical shapes. Thus a barrier is placed be- 
tween thought and speech, except that division of thought 
which uses the substances of life to make sound and shape 
for words and letters. 

Ether waves have a double function. They give light to 
the world, and they give thought to the world. They span 
two worlds; for they give material senses their light and 
thought, and are hidden from us in their psychic processes 
except when they break through the barrieres. 



8i 



SECOND DIVISION 

OF THE 

BOOK of the PSYCHIC SOCIETY 



DEVOTED TO THE STUDY OF 

PROOFS FURNISHED BY 
PSYCHIC PROCESSES 



83 



CHAPTER XII. 




ON THE THRESHOLD, 1 

EFORE ENTERING into the direct work 
of the Second Division of this book it is im- 
portant that the reader should understand the 
different nature of the laws that are to claim 
our attention. As a special preparation for 
the study now ahead of us, all persons who 
own the books referred to in the early chap- 
ter entitled, Sources of Help, are asked to refresh their 
minds with the principles and facts there presented, ac- 
companied by the long lines of proofs on every hand. To 
encumber this volume with that matter would add thou- 
sands of pages in repetition. 

It will be seen that there are two worlds; one is the 
physical and the other the psychic. 

The former is born in earth and is made of earth. The 
intelligence that is everywhere seen in matter, is that which 
only contact with experiences of earth can develop. There- 
fore it must have such senses as are useful for a form of 
life on this planet. Hearing, taste, smell and touch, can- 
not possibly be born unless used, and they grow only as 
they are used. 

Sight as we see it with the eyes, is merely a fragment of 
the action of the ether waves, as it shows us nothing but 
the surface of things. In order to successfully exist amid 
the dangers and vicissitudes of this world, we should have 
the power to view what is about us of a physical character. 
Hence part of the function of the ether process of sight is 
given to humanity. It shows only what is on the surface, 



84 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

a thin layer so small that its thickness is nothing as meas- 
ured by physical standards. What is known as transparent 
matter, is only an arrangement of molecules that permits 
the light to pass through unheeded ; but, even then, the sur- 
face of the molecules is all that can be seen. 

True ether waves with the psychic vision, know no more 
of surfaces than they do of the whole inward structure of 
substances. 

Sight also acts on matter only. 

In the psychic world what is now for convenience called 
sight, acts as the whole channel of knowledge. 

The first division of the present book is devoted to the 
study of proofs that are furnished by the physical senses. 
It is supposed that what we see must be a fact. The 
chapter on Premonitions will explain to what extent that is 
true. The same subject is also treated in other chapters 
of the First Division. 

Many persons are convinced that what they hear must 
be true, as far as the sound is concerned. " If I hear a 
knock at the door of my room, I know that some one or 
something caused it or executed it," says the practical 
man. The chapter on Sounds in the First Division will 
make clear how much or how little value can be attached 
to the noises that enter the brain. The same is true of 
touch. Smell and taste do not often enter into the phe- 
nomena, although there are a few remarkable cases that 
have been investigated. 

To sum up the First Division it may be said that an 
immense mass of testimony has been received, and that the 
physical senses, chiefly the sense of sight, can be credited 
with furnishing proofs of the fact that the psychic world is 
seeking all the time to break through into the physical 
world ; and, as it can come only by employing the senses, 
the latter must be depended on to furnish the facts. 

On the other hand all intelligent men have come to 
agree that there is a faculty or series of faculties that man- 



ON THE THRESHOLD 85 

ifest themselves through other agencies than the physical 
senses. They refer to such faculty as some power that 
either has had its sway and is dying out, or that is yet to 
make itself known more and more as the progress of the 
universe is maintained. Everything is improving, earth, 
suns, planets, stars, and the great communion of distant 
worlds. All are tending to some grand finale. 

What we of earth want to know is the facts. 

We want a practical knowledge of the facts. 

We seek the truth, not as served to us by some thin- 
brained theorist, or flimsy cult; but the solid truth, strong, 
provable, knowable, honest and full of the meat of fact from 
center to circumference. 

There is not a sensible man or woman on the earth to- 
day who would not gladly welcome the truth, if he or she 
could be convinced that it is the truth and nothing else. 

.Enough has already been ascertained and depicted in the 
First Division of this book to show beyond all doubt that 
there is a psychic world. This is the basis of further in- 
vestigation. Here we have an acknowledged fact to begin 
with. Let every step of the way be as sure and as solid 
as the start. 

Laws and principles are evolved and proved as they come 
to light.. 

For instance, it is well known that the light of the 
universe travels along the ether, and is the vibration of the 
ether itself. Here is another fact of prime importance. 

In the use of the physical senses, it has been clearly 
shown that manifestations of the psychic world are not able 
to break through except by the aid of light; and they ap- 
pear, when genuine, only as visions, never by sound or 
touch. This confirms the law that the psychic is ethereal, 
and that light is the connecting link between the two 
worlds. 

Then it has been absolutely established by the aid of the 
physical senses that there is such a power as telepathy. It 



86 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

may be said that no person of intelligence denies this to-day, 
unless he has been excluded by circumstances from the facts 
that are everywhere known. When, in the years gone by, 
so many hard-headed, practical men entered into the psy- 
chical societies in all civilized countries, fixed in their be- 
liefs that telepathy was not a fact, and they have all changed 
their views and not known it to be a fact, there is nothing 
left for proof as to this law. 

Telepathy is of two classes: 

It is physical when it reveals facts related to physical life. 

It is psychic when it reveals facts related to psychic life. 

Both kinds of telepathy can be cultivated, but not easily, 
if one expects to interpret psychic thoughts into physical 
words. Here some power has placed a barrier in order 
that destiny might not be known in advance of its fulfilment. 

Already it has been seen that proofs are accumulating that 
satisfy the most skeptical minds, and they are so satisfying 
them to-day by the thousands. 

Long ago it was supposed that hypnotism and magnetism 
were the same processes. Now it is established that hypno- 
tism is a power that acts on certain subjects, putting them 
into a cataleptic sleep, and deadening their physical faculties 
only to awaken the same faculties into an obedience to the 
suggestions of another. 

It is also now established that magnetism awakens all 
persons whom it touches; the used and the user. It is an 
inspiration to all who are acted upon. Whereas hypnotism 
leaves its subject poorer in will and meaner m character, 
magnetism makes its subject a nobler, grander being. Mag- 
netism does not win by subduing, but by imparting a better 
life and a better will. Take away personal magnetism from 
the minister, and he cannot uplift his hearers. He cannot 
encourage chem. He cannot give them his genuine sympathy. 
He cannot arouse them to new ambitions and efforts to win 
success in life or salvation for eternity. 

The more magnetism that the preacher possesses, the more 



ON THE THRESHOLD 87 

good he will accomplish, the more men and women he will 
save, and the more rewards he will earn for himself. If 
he lacks magnetism, he has no right to preach. But if he 
were to hypnotize his hearers, he would put them to sleep 
and make them useless timber for the church. 

It is only in recent years that people have came to under- 
stand the difference between magnetism and hypnotism. It 
is well that they now know. 

Personal magnetism acts on ether waves, as is clearly 
shown in the systems of training; but it acts on physical 
life, and for the purposes of helping such existence. In 
advance magnetism, the power extends itself into the psychic 
world, and in universal magnetism it makes one great com- 
munity of all the worlds in space, including even the 
minutest detail of human life. 

- Proofs of these powers are found in the remarkable re- 
sults they achieve. 

It is important that the double-functions of the leading 
powers be seen ; among them the following being closer to 
the investigations of the Psychic Society: 

1. Light has a double-function; it is the agency of the 
psychic world, and also the only method known to the 
physical senses whereby proof of the former world is made 
manifest to the physical world. 

2. Telepathy has a double- function ; it reveals the hid- 
den knowledge of the physical world, and gives glimpses of 
the psychic world. It has the greatest immediate future of 
any power in all the universe. It can be examined under 
accurate laws that leave no doubt of its certainty as a 
power. 

3. Magnetism has a double-function ; and reaches farther 
than any other known agency. It furnishes a vast fund of 
proof for the investigator into the psychic world. 

4. The double-functions of the unseen powers are proof 
of the law that the psychic extends into the physical world ; 
and this is what humanity needs most to know. 



88 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

Having thus come to the threshold of proof along the 
higher lines of investigation, we will now deal with laws 
and principles rather than with evidences furnished by the 
senses. A law is something greater than a fact. It stands 
out immutable and eternal, surviving the wreck of change, 
and pointing the way to the realm of fixed facts and truths. 





CHAPTER XIII. 

1 THE UNSEEN POWERS. 

1 



RRIVING NOW at the first realm of the 
newly discovered world, we find it necessary 
to understand what powers are unseen and 
what influences are holding sway in the sight- 
less air about us. An unhealthy mind conjures 
up all sorts of goblins and fearful spirits; and 
the brain can create almost everything it fears. 
A wholesome, sane, normal mind, has no fancies that are mor- 
bid. To it all things are clean and free from apprehension. 
It is the purpose of this book to destroy fear and superstition. 
Let us start by studying the following group of the un- 
seen powers and influences that surround life or exist about 
us somewhere; beginning at the Supreme Being, and drop- 
ping step by step from Him, as we descend. 
i. GOD. 

2. HEAVEN. 

3. RELIGION. 

4. INSPIRATION. 

5. GENIUS. 

6. UNIVERSAL MAGNETISM. 

7. PSYCHIC TELEPATHY. 

8. INTUITION. 

9. INSTINCT. 

io. PHYSICAL MAGNETISM. 
ii. PHYSICAL TELEPATHY. 

12. HYPNOTISM. 

13. SUPERSTITION. 

14. DEMONS. 




go 



CHAPTER XIV. 

S ^0000000000000000000000000000000000000000A 

1 GOD. 1 

I £ 

^000000000000000000000000000000000000000^ 



HERE IS A LIVING GOD whose pres- 
ence fills the universe. Of this fact there is no 
doubt. No person can study psychic telepathy 
lor universal magnetism and have any misgiv- 
ings as to the existence of a living, ever-present 
Supreme Being. It is not our purpose to 
enter into the discussion of this assertion. 
There has not been a nation or people since first the world 
began, who has not been reaching out after the Divine in 
response to the psychic longings within the human breast; 
and that which is longed for or hoped for, exists somewhere. 
But this line of argument is speculative, and does not 
suit the methods of this book. The point we make is 
that the existence of God is a generally accepted fact. 
Further than this, it is also a proved fact. 
LAW. — God is a multiple being. 

He is not a giant of undue and inharmonious proportions 
with the rest of creation ; but is omnipresent by reason of the 
fact that His personality is multiple. It may occupy every 
one of the countless worlds in space. It may be present in 
many parts of the same world, and so exist without limita- 
tion. 

There is no doubt that God is seen and known in all 
the worlds of the universe except the earth. 

The best conception of Him that is obtainable from any 
source, whether religious or psychic, may be had by a careful 
analysis of the Bible, as far as it shows His character and 
purposes. It also discloses in wonderful review the many- 



GOD gi 

sided nature of humanity in the midst of temptations, doubts 
and struggles that were titanic. 

It is not possible to obtain a knowledge of God by the 
mere use of the reasoning faculties. They are born of 
physical parentage, and God is wholly apart from that 
realm, both as to His being and His mode of dealing with 
humanity. Yet it is true that, as we catch glimpses of the 
psychic through the material realm, so we see the plan of 
God at times in the creation about us. 

In the study of the idea of sex nature, it is shown that 
all the universe and all life of every kind is sexed. God 
is the Father, and is so known. Nature is the Mother, and 
she has always been referred to by that term. The physical 
construction of the universe is the product of the union be- 
tween God and Nature. This Mother of us all is physical 
life in all its processes. 

LAW. — Nature is a conscious personality knowing hu- 
manity in its smallest and its greatest needs. 

LAW. — The product of Nature is humanity with its 
physical and psychic possibilities. 



92 



CHAPTER XV. 

HEAVEN. 




ROM THE REMOTEST era all peoples 
'have believed in a place of abode after death; 
and it is not surprising that their belief was 
colored by their grades of civilization. The 
higher the scale of intelligence rose, the nobler 
became their conception of heaven. Nothing 
reflects better the character of a people than 
their views of the hereafter. As reason grew apace, some 
minds thought that the will should be unchained, and its 
flights given free wing. This plunged us into an era of 
skepticism, using the term in its sense of relationship to the 
prevailing religion. 

Laying aside all influences that come from such sources, 
whether for or against a belief in heaven, we come to the 
direct proofs furnished by psychic telepathy, universal mag- 
netism, and the efforts of the psychic world to break through 
the ordinary senses. 

LAW. — Nothing is lost, wasted, or in vain. 
The sky is full of worlds. They are called suns because 
they give out original light, or light of their own. Each 
sun has planets, as our own sun has; and each planet has 
satellites, as our earth has. Some scientists regard space as 
having no limit. Some think that all the sky is inhabited 
with stars which are parts of a great mass of matter; and 
that we are insects crawling on grains of sand, of which 
the earth is a very small individual. 
This view is incorrect. 
In the use of the microscope we get very close to the 



HEAVEN 93 

atoms which compose the sunlight, showing the limit of 
creation in that direction. From the atom everything be- 
gins. 

LAW. — Ether fills all occupied space in the sky. 

This atmosphere which is now known everywhere as 
ether, is the sunlight that has gone forth as rays, in lines 
of atoms. The sky is filled with it, as far as the sky is 
occupied. There is a limited number of worlds, even 
though they are seemingly countless and amaze the math- 
ematician by their vastness of size and endless procession. 
Where the worlds end, there the ether ends. All else is 
nothing. 

LAW. — Light is an impulse that vibrates the ether 
throughout all the occupied realms of the sky. 
■ In the beginning the suns went forth. Then they sent 
out their flaming light. This light, finding space unoc- 
cupied, took possession of it, until all was filled with ether. 
Since then the impulses of light vibrate the ether that oc- 
cupies space, taking the place of all is woven into worlds. 
The process of world-building is part of our higher system 
of training, known as philosophy. 

LAW. — A psychic impulse travels faster than a wave of 
light. 

It requires but a few minutes for an impulse of light to 
journey from the sun to the earth, more than ninety millions 
of miles. 

LAW. — Light is material. 

In fact the ether is material, and really physical, but we 
fall partly into line with others who assert that it is super- 
natural, for we take the word itself as the key to the 
proper term to be applied. 

We call light material, and yet it furnishes the medium 
whereby all ethereal life travels or exists. There is noth- 
ing smaller than an atom of light. A body of air is ma- 
terial, yet sound travels on it by using the mass for the 
purposes of vibration. Sound is not air, and air need not 



94 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

have any motion whatever, yet sound moves along its 
mass at a rate of speed that is inconceivable when compared 
with any form of physical motion. 

Light occupies several minutes of time in coming a dis- 
tance of ninety millions of miles. Air may move at the 
rate of a hundred miles an hour or even faster than that, 
although it keeps within a more reasonable rate of speed 
most of the time. Sound which is the vibration of a body of 
air, travels so much faster than the gale, or air-body itself, 
that it cannot be compared to it. Yet sound is not air. 

We now see that the occupied space of the sky is filled 
with worlds sailing in a sea of ether, and that this ether 
is the medium of communication from world to world, just 
as the ocean enables man to have converse with the conti- 
nents and islands of earth, and air gives him the promise of 
other triumphs. 

The law tells us that nothing is lost, nothing is wasted, 
and nothing is in vain. In fact there is no way of losing 
anything. The substance of the sun goes forth as atomic 
matter, but it cannot get lost, not even if it strays billions 
of miles off. Magnetism holds it in leash. Every atom 
must be accounted for, and there are more billions of atoms 
in a drop of water than you could count in ten billion cen- 
turies, if you counted a billion every second of the time. 
Here we have an example of infinitude. 

LAW. — Every world in the sky is the abode of created 
beings. 

Nothing is lost. Nothing is in vain. Nothing is useless. 

Every atom has its use. 

As out of the abundance of earth each and every particle 
is made to serve some useful purpose, so all the worlds in 
the sky contribute to the service of the Creator and the be- 
ings that are subject to His rule. The idea of orbs that 
are dead and dried up, or that have cooled off and are no 
longer useful, is erroneous, as it is contradicted by every 
known principle of creation. 



HEAVEN 95 

LAW. — Beautiful worlds are the abodes and visiting 
places of the psychic body. 

What earth is, will be seen later in this book. 

It was once supposed that our planet was the center of 
the sky, that the sun revolved around it, that the stars 
were made for no other purpose than to give light on nights 
when the moon was away, and that heaven was above the 
earth. 

The fact is that we are some distance away from the 
center of the universe, but not relatively far ofr. What is 
called the milky way holds the central orbs. But the best 
telescope ever made cannot peer within its courts. 

As the miscroscope becomes a confused mass when it 
reaches its utmost power of magnifying, so the telescope 
gives nothing but a blur just when we think that we can 
look in upon Mars, the most favored of all the heavenly 
bodies for our study. To combat this difficulty the inge- 
nuity of inventive man has conceived the idea of taking 
photographic views of that planet, and then magnifying those 
views, again photographing, until at last we can see an ob- 
ject on Mars as big as the head of a pin, and read the facial 
expression on the nearest inhabitant. But the barrier is 
purposely placed against such discovery. 

No physical invention will look upon any star or orb and 
reveal the life that dwells there. 

It is a psychic existence. 

The study of the planet Mars discloses canals that change 
their shape and conditions twice a year, as though beings 
were working on them. A plausible account of the purpose 
involved in such operations makes it look as if there might be 
people there who take advantage of the peculiar seasons in 
order to raise vegetation, which it is claimed appears every 
summer in the warm portions of the orb. But the best 
astronomers refuse to advance such theory and merely say 
that not enough is known to warrant the suggestion that 
there is any life on Mars. 



96 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

Other planets are given special seasons and habits, owing 
to their varying relationship to the sun. One has eternal 
summer throughout one great zone, with eternal winter on 
the extremes. It is as though we lived in Canada in an 
endless January, and others lived in New York in an endless 
June, while others lived in Florida in an endless August. 

Another planet gives one-half of itself to constant winter 
and another half to constant summer. So they change to 
set up variety. No two are alike, and each has some distinct 
characteristic that marks it as specially arranged for life on 
its surface. 

The one law of variety alone gives certainty that a pur- 
pose is involved in the plan of creation. What is true of 
one orb is true of all the suns and all their planets and 
attendant globes. Each world is different from all others. 

This variation is intended to bring an endless succession of 
glories to the psychic body when once it is set free from the 
bondage of earth. 

LAW. — Heaven includes all the universe beyond the 
earth. 

God is an unseen power. There may have been good men 
who have looked upon Him or some one of His multiple 
personality, but they are not living to-day. 

Heaven is an unseen power. It is not only the places of 
abode and visitation, but the peoples that are there. They 
exert in some way an influence over the better part of human 
nature on earth. 




97 
CHAPTER XVI. 




RELIGION. 

ITH THE FIRST COMING of human 
families on earth, there arose the question, 
What becomes of our loved ones when they 
die? That inquiry of itself is enough to give 
^ rise to every religion on the face of the globe. 
The desire to live, the dread of death, and the 
hope of continued existence, make it easy for 
any leader among a people to frame the tenets of a religion 
and find followers until something better is offered. 
Death is both mysterious and alarming. 
Sadness, grief, the fear of dark agencies, the high tension 
of the nervous system among the ignorant classes, all make 
religion a natural offering from those who are able to take 
the leadership. Strong men and all women lean to the 
hope that religion gives. So pleasing is it in the minds of 
certain peoples that death is welcomed rather than feared 
because of the prospect of greater happiness forthwith. 
Any motive that will urge one to court death on the promise 
of happiness in another world, is a religious disease; for it 
invites suicide, and suicide is death to the psychic body, and 
to hope hereafter. 

Instinct is one of the unseen powers. 

It cannot tell a lie. When its meaning is fully under- 
stood, what it has to say in its way is the truth. 

There are grades of instinct running the gamut from the 

realm of the lower animals to that of the highest genius in 

man. In all normal hearts there is the instinct for a true 

religion. It is not only inborn but is a part of the existence 

7 



98 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

of the psychic nature in the human body. Death excites and 
inspires it among those who survive and is made an agency 
for just such purposes; in the same way that love inspires 
and excites the function that reproduces the race. 

The one purpose of any religion is to set the soul free 
from the bondage of earth. The method by which it sets 
the soul free is in making it worthy to pass on to other 
worlds in the sky, and thus to enter heaven. 

Hope is a form of religious instinct. So is faith. So is 
the longing for a life hereafter. So are all the teachings 
and doctrines that actually make man stop before he commits 
crime and realize that there is a God that sees him and that 
will leave him to a dreaded fate if he goes wrong. 

The function of religion is to destroy the feeling of se- 
curity in wrong doing. When any man or woman feels safe 
in such acts as are prohibited in the code of an upright life, 
then religion is lacking. When the sense of security is 
present because no one is looking, then there is no religion. 

From a scientific standpoint the definition of religion is 
that it is the highest ethical instinct in the human heart seek- 
ing a code that will compel each individual to stop before he 
commits crime, that will show him the ever-present Eye of 
the Creator looking down into his heart, that will rescue 
him from the sway of temptation and give him clear passage 
to another world if death were to come unannounced. 



99 



CHAPTER XVII. 

I INSPIRATION. 1 




OWEVER HUMBLE the mind or heart 
may be, no person is denied the power that 
comes from inspiration. There are several 
grades of this faculty. Like instinct it appears 
in the lowly and in the highborn, in the lesser 
scale of life and in the greatest ranks of intel- 
ligence. It often takes the place of education, 
as in the case of Shakespeare. How any lad who had not 
been taught enough to have given him qualification to enter 
the first schools of our day could become master of the 
English language and set the pace for the grandest geniuses 
to follow through endless generations, is hard to understand. 
A person is inspired when he receives help from the 
psychic world, no matter whether or not he hears any voice, 
or sees any visions or comes in contact with any other being ; 
it is enough if he is given knowledge or power. 

Like instinct, inspiration will not mislead or falsify. 
Were it not for the facts that are breathed into the minds 
of the lower animals, all would perish. Birds know when 
to go south and when to come north, when to build and 
where <:o make their stay. Many of the smaller quadrupeds 
lay by their stock of food for the winter, and perform deeds 
that excite the admiration of human beings; acts that are 
not told them by their parents, for there are countless cases 
where the young have been orphaned at birth, and yet have 
taken up instinctively the methods that are necessary to 
sustain life. A person who has not studied the habits of the 
animals will be surprised at the many acts of a superior in- 



ioo THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

telligence they perform, outwitting man both in skill and 
cunning. As they have had no one to teach them, it must 
follow that they are given knowledge by a psychic power 
which for convenience is called instinct. 

This power does not lie. 

It is keener than most persons believe. The more it is 
studied the greater becomes its wonders, and the more re- 
spect one has for it. To the unobservant mind it is almost 
nothing. We recall the case of a man of great intelligence 
who asked to be advised how to cultivate a belief in some 
unseen power, no matter what it was, so that it was genuine; 
and we asked him to make a persistent and exhaustive study 
of instinct in all the uses that he could ascertain. In other 
words, to make a long and thorough investigation into its 
operations from its humblest acts to its greatest. 

At first he hesitated on the ground that the scope was too 
limited to afford deep study. But he started in, and soon 
was absorbed in the unfolding fields of labor before him. 
Acts, deeds, transactions, wonderful habits and traits, all 
held him spellbound for months. At last he wrote us as 
follows: " I find that instinct is indeed an unseen power, 
and I lift my hat to it with the deepest worship. No law 
of nature can account for the specific acts of high intelligence 
that I have met in my researches. At times I have felt 
sure that I am putting my hand in God's own hand and 
being led into a belief in His personal presence; but I have 
decided that He consigns to other powers each department 
of His government. I would like to publish a book of in- 
stinct by which I might tell the world the miracles that it 
knows nothing about. In closing I wish to say that this 
power is not a thing to be theorized over. It is a fact all 
the way along. It is as plain as the sun in the heavens. Its 
methods are convincing. They prove that we exist in the 
midst of an unseen government, to deny which is the highest 
evidence of an unfolded mind. I did deny it once, and I 
deserve censure for it." 



INSPIRATION 101 

The knowledge that instinct furnishes is most amazing in 
its volume and power. The things that it tells are draughts 
from the psychic world. 

Rising to higher gifts, a new power dawns on the horizon. 
It is inspiration. It is all the time knocking at the door 
of every life where it is likely to receive the slightest wel- 
come. 

All the worthy battles of the world have been planned 
and won by the aid of inspiration. 

All the deeds that have set on the tide of progress have 
had their origin in this unseen power. 

Without inspiration everything is ordinary. It follows 
the humdrum of a daily physical existence. It is work with- 
out reward, when it is work without inspiration. 

The inventions of the world were born in inspiration. 
The good deeds, the gifts of art, of sculpture, of painting, 
of literature, of poetry, of music, of architecture, and of all 
that draws the heart of man up nearer to heaven, are con- 
ceived in this power known as inspiration. 

As life in the body is both physical and psychic, it follows 
that the predominance of one subdues the other, and the 
subjection of one permits the other to have greater sway. 
It also follows that, when one is neglected, the other will 
seek to take its place. 

Examples of this tendency are found in the lives of those 
men who have had frail physical bodies and whose psychic 
natures have been more active in consequence. Hundreds 
of cases of the kind may be summoned at once from the 
pages of history. This shows a conformance with the gen- 
eral principle stated, and confirms the psychic law. 

The power known as inspiration can be cultivated to a 
very high degree by any person. No matter how long you 
have denied admission to your mind of this agency from 
the psychic world, it still stands at the outer door waiting 
for recognition. Its knocks will be faint or loud in pro- 
portion as you have given it entrance in the past. Whether 



102 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

you are in business, or in society, or in a profession, or at 
work for another person, there is opportunity to find aid 
from this power. 

The psychic world is seeking all the while to break through 
into your physical life. This is one of its well known and 
certain channels. It may come in the form of a valuable 
idea. Seize that at once. Go to some book and write it 
down. Do not wait one minute. Stop wherever you are, 
and secure the idea just as you received it. This has been 
the practice of the greatest men of the world. Whether 
poet, or prose writer, orator, painter, sculptor, painter, ar- 
chitect, lawyer, doctor, inventor, business man, no matter 
in what walk of life, when an idea of value comes to you, 
secure it in black and white. Longfellow, the poet, used to 
leap from his bed and note down his ideas. The same fact 
has been related of others so many times as to be a by-word 
in the class of great men. 

A strange arrangement of words, a beautifully framed 
thought, an epigram, a plan for important achievement, or 
other visit of this power should be recognized by being 
placed on paper where it may be reviewed from time to 
time. The thought of it, the seeing of it, and the repeating 
of it become stimulants to the very faculty that gave birth 
to the inspiration. The power comes more readily the next 
time, if so encouraged. There is but one way to encourage 
it, and that is by putting the facts on paper at once, and 
then keeping them in mind from time to time. 

This method has been advised in our books for more than 
a quarter of a century, and a few persons have followed it 
with stupendous success. The result is that the power of 
inspiration opens up the pages of the books of knowledge 
that are closed to all other human beings. All may be ad- 
mitted to the class of favored people who receive the rewards 
of such knowledge. You can make the effort in your own 
life, and you will soon witness the presence of the power. 

For fear that some reader may deem the task too difficult, 



INSPIRATION 103 

we wish to repeat the advice to have pencil and paper at 
hand at all times, and when any idea that seems valuable 
occurs to the mind, note it at once. Do not depend on the 
memory. 

The purpose of this habit is to set in motion the process 
of this unseen power. It will do it. At first the ideas 
may not seem strong or useful. No matter. Keep up the 
practice. Read over from time to time what you have writ- 
ten down. Keep them all in one book, and get them as near 
like the first impression as possible, using the same words 
that. you first employed in thinking of the idea. These are 
nearest to the power itself. 

In a few months you should have hundreds of ideas that 
seemed to leap into your life. You will enjoy reviewing 
them, and will never tire of this practice, when once you 
have got it well started. 

Day by day, if you persevere, the power will grow stronger, 
especially if you have persisted in it for some months. 
Nothing can be accomplished in a day. 

We wish you to see for yourself what can be achieved in 
your life by developing this psychic power. Just for the 
sake of making the test and pursuing one line of worthy 
ambition, follow this to the greatest end and report to our 
Society the result. We know what will be the outcome if 
you stick to it with a dogged will. The power will grow 
and your ideas will become greater and greater until one of 
them brings you success in a degree beyond your fondest 
dreams. This fact is so easily proved that you should give it 
a fair trial. The test is within your grasp. It will cost 
you nothing. We want to know what results, as it is the 
purpose of our existence as a society to secure all the facts 
possible under each of the great unseen powers. 

It may be as an inventor that you will obtain an enormous 
fortune. It may be in some profession that you will achieve 
success. It may be in art or literature that fame will be 
won. It may be in business ventures, and they require the 



104 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

aid of inspiration and inspired ideas to bring gigantic results. 
No matter how humble you are in life at the present day, 
you will rise, rise, rise, until you hold the reins instead of 
being driven. 

This fact is as certain as that the morrow's sun will rise. 

A writer began nearly forty years ago to pursue the course 
advised in this chapter, and he was given the suggestion in 
private by one of the most famous and most successful men 
that have ever lived in America who took an interest in 
him then. He has not always obeyed the appeal of the 
power when it seemed to knock at the door of his life, but 
to a great extent he followed that advice. The result has 
been this: There are times when great facts will leap out 
of the universe upon his pen, and he will sit amazed by 
them, unwilling to give them place for fear he is drawing 
too boldly on the unseen fund. But analysis and study and 
investigation have always found these truths to be invincible. 
His works are the product of just such help, and they have 
become more and more proved as the years have advanced. 
He knows that the laws and statements made in this book 
are true. Yet many of them are ahead of the times. Proofs 
abundant have hemmed them all in on every side until the 
Society accepts them as established facts. 




105 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

I GENIUS. 

ESSER IN DEGREE, but none the less true 
are the evidences of power known as genius. 
Men and women, some uneducated and others 
favored with book learning, have been found 
to be geniuses. The inspired writer may re- 
veal the story of heaven told to him by an- 
gels, as occurred in the olden times. Or he 
may arise to heights of achievement in any line of life, seizing 
the thunderbolt and arresting its course on the mount of 
glory, to send it forth in the name of progress for the earth. 
A genius would not write a great poem, but he might plan 
and execute some piece of workmanship, or lead the way 
into new fields of discovery. 

The main difference between the unseen power of inspira- 
tion and the unseen power of genius is this : 

Inspiration secures knowledge, while genius executes the 
work of humanity in a better way than it has ever been 
done before. 

It may be courted or cultivated by following the sugges- 
tions and practice of the preceding chapter. 

But such suggestions belong rather to the work to be 
done than to the ideas or principles that underlie that work. 
The ability to make a perfect circle in one sweep of the 
brush shows remarkable genius in an artist, as does the 
playing of the piano in such a way as to cause the notes to 
sing. The same kind of power makes the actor a genius, 
for he does not originate the thoughts he utters. Yet he 
may achieve greatness by his interpretation. 




io6 



CHAPTER XIX. 
UNIVERSAL MAGNETISM. 



ELD TOGETHER by chains of unseen 
power all the worlds of the sky are drawn into 
a common family of relationship. Looking at 
the sun, the mind that had not studied the sub- 
ject would say at once that it had no control 
over the earth; but, when he learned that it 
was more than ninety millions of miles away, 
he would feel sure that it could not be subjected to any in- 
fluence that came from so great a distance. 

Again, when he was shown a planet that seemed so small 
an object as to have no claim whatever on his attention, and 
was told that it was more than a billion miles away from 
the sun, he would ridicule the idea of its being held tightly 
within the control of the great star that centers our system. 
Swinging out through space, retracing in their years the 
same pathway all the while, yet flying rapidly away from 
the power that binds them to their orbit, they find them- 
selves all the time coming back into subjection. 
How can this happen? 

Gravity is an unseen power. It is not a substance, any 
more than sound is a substance. By gravity the body of 
man is chained to the earth much more securely than cords 
or irons could hold him. He cannot defeat gravity, and he 
might cut the chains and ropes. 
But what is gravity? 

It has no existence except in the will of the Creator. It 
actually takes hold of nothing. The planets that are more 
than a billion miles away are tied to the sun; yet they are 



UNIVERSAL MAGNETISM 107 

thrown from the sun by the opposite power. What is there 
in a planet that can exert an influence through a distance of 
a billion miles, with nothing but ether between? This un- 
seen power must act on the ether and through it, as that 
medium must carry the message and execute the will of the 
power ordained. 

In ether, which penetrates every solid as easily as it per- 
meates space, there is the element that holds molecules to- 
gether in such a way that some make iron, some gold, some 
diamonds, some wood, some water, some air, and others every 
conceivable shape and substance. In ether is the element 
that generates electricity. In ether is the element that exe- 
cutes the law of gravity. In ether is the element that exe- 
cutes the law of magnetism. In ether is the element that 
reaches out through infinite space and holds worlds to- 
gether. Neptune is as closely bound to the sun as is Venus 
or Mercury. 

This is the power of magnetism. 

As far as ether extends through space, so far does it carry 
the influences known as magnetism and telepathy; and it 
reaches to all the worlds that exist in the sky. No one can 
deny that there is such a power as gravity or attraction that 
is exerted for more than a billion miles in our solar system. 
This fact is jlementary. It shows in the simplest form one 
of the unseen powers that are at work. Yet gravity is a 
division of magnetism. The following principles will help 
to give a clear understanding of this quality of the psychic 
world : 

1. What is known as magnetism is power. 

2. Magnetism is the opposite of hypnotism. 

3. There are two classes of magnetism: the physical and 
the psychic. 

4. Physical magnetism includes the power of action, 
thought and feeling. 

5. Psychic magnetism is the power that rules all subcon- 
scious existence. 



io8 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

6. It is by magnetism that growth of every kind takes 
place. 

7. It is by magnetism that gravity, cohesion, adhesion, 
and other forces operate. 

8. It is by magnetism that the earth is held in the solar 
system, and yet is kept from rushing to the sun. 

9. It is by magnetism that distant influences extend 
throughout all the realms of the sky. 

10. Universal magnetism throws its lines to every world 
in space, unites the most distant orbs with all others, con- 
nects every form of power with every other, reaches the 
smallest forms of life in our planet and opens to them the 
powers of communication with the whole universe. 

These conditions have always existed. The ability to 
know them, to recognize them, to take up the thread of con- 
nection with them, and to use them, is open to every human 
being. 

Personal magnetism is one of the divisions of physical 
power. It deals with the influences that are exerted by 
animal electricity and its charms over others who come 
directly under such processes. It is the first great training 
school of self-control, without which no person can hope to 
control others. 

No power can be exerted without some medium through 
which to act. In universal magnetism the medium is ether, 
which has already been described. Of its existence there is 
ample proof, and it is accepted as the one great sea in space 
through which all influences travel. All writers on psychic 
subjects to-day, whose works are given standing as reliable, 
refer to the spiritual body as the psychic body or the ethereal 
body. It is not made of ether, but employs that agency as 
the medium through which it passes on to other worlds. 

It is thus seen that some kind of substance is everywhere 
present. Water is more unstable than land, as land is more 
stable than sand, and sand than mud, or mud than water, or 
water than air, or air than gases, and so ether is lighter 



UNIVERSAL MAGNETISM 109 

than gases. It is all really physical, and the difference is 
merely one of degree. But it would not do to refer to 
ether as physical, or light as physical, or the soul as physical, 
or the powers that rule unseen in all the universe as physical, 
for the public mind has come to know them as occupying 
two sides of a great dividing line; on one side we find the 
substantial material of earth and its inhabitants; on the other 
we find the unseen powers holding high sway in elements 
of their own. 

Yet the fact will some day be recognized that there is 
nothing in heaven or earth that is not related to all that is 
physical by degree only. 



no 



CHAPTER XX. 



J> 



/ivi -i . i - 1 -<,i,i - 1 i r^i.r.i i . lit, i . , 4 .T, .ivi r i 



PSYCHIC TELEPATHY. 




ROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD of the 

'world's history, the power of conveying 
thoughts through channels other than the 
senses, has been recognized and wondered at. 
Strange things have been performed in the 
name of this seemingly subtle influence. But 
as we have come to know it better, we find 
that it is nothing but the union of the ordinary senses with 
the subconscious mind. A glimpse of what is meant by the 
latter is caught when a person is hypnotized. Nature does 
not want the two minds to know each other; so she re- 
quires that the ordinary brain shall be put to sleep, and on 
awaking it will have no recollection of what it saw during 
its hypnotic slumber. 

By comparing this fact with the account of hypnotism 
given in a subsequent chapter, the difference between the 
two powers may be readily seen. 

But it is not true that every kind of hypnotism results 
in telepathy. Nor is it true that telepathy depends always 
on hypnotism. The use of the latter is a very quick way 
in which to get proofs of the existence of such a power as 
telepathy. The method to be pursued is too extensive for 
this work, but it is referred to in the chapter mentioned. 
After a succession of hypnotic sleeps the mind of the subject 
becomes very sensitive and soon gives evidence of having 
knowledge of affairs, that have occurred and are occurring 
in other places, no matter how far away. He very rarely 
knows what is going on about him. He seems to get his 



PSYCHIC TELEPATHY in 

information from the minds of others rather than the occur- 
rences themselves. This dictinction is important. 

But there are numerous other ways in which a person 
who is awake and who could not possibly be put under 
hypnotic influences, may develop the power of telepathy. A 
whole book has been devoted to that subject by the author, 
but it is not up to date, as great progress has been made in 
the art since that work was published. The methods by 
which telepathy may be acquired, developed and increased to 
an unlimited degree, are now known to a certainty. 

It is now an established fact that every human being has 
two minds that receive information. One mind obtains its 
information from the use of the ordinary senses. If a 
thing tastes bad or good, the sense of taste says so. If it 
smells bad or good, the nose tells the fact. If it is hot, 
cold, smooth, rough, or otherwise qualified, the sense of 
touch reports the information to the brain. Hearing plays 
a greater part; so much greater that nature enables many 
sounds to die at the drum of the ear in order to save the 
brain the wear and tear of too much noise. Sight is the 
closest of all faculties to both the brain and the soul. It is 
nearest to the psychic world of all the physical senses. 

All knowledge that comes through the five senses must 
pass into the physical mind. 

But there is another mind that never sleeps. It is the 
subconscious. While the ordinary mind is active, this 
strange mentality will not assert itself, and its owner knows 
nothing of it, or of the things that it knows. In sleep the 
subconscious faculty is alert, but its rambles are wholly un- 
known to the conscious mind unless there is a dream, and 
sometimes this is so vivid that the two minds come to- 
gether. 

You who read these statements are receiving every minute 
of your life a constant stream of information from the minds 
of people in the world. This is physical telepathy. You 
do not know what is going on, for there is an almost impos- 



H2 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

sible barrier between your conscious mind and the subcon- 
sciousness. 

But once in a while some thought leaps from the brain 
of another person and is in your brain in the instant. If 
you have never had this experience, you are the first and 
only person as far as we know that has lacked it. In an 
audience of fourteen hundred persons we asked the question, 
How many had had proofs of telepathy ? — and every indi- 
vidual in the assemblage replied in the affirmative. We 
further asked each person to state in writing and mail to us 
an account of the latest experience of the kind, the date as 
near as it could be remembered, the place and the circum- 
stances. There were 1182 written responses which were 
complete in details as requested. All showed evidence of 
the power of telepathy. 

At a summer hotel where we were known by a large 
number of the visitors and guests, the statement was made 
that, while there was undoubtedly such a power as telepathy, 
it probably was not common. It was a rainy afternoon, 
and we repaired to the large hall. The following announce- 
ment was made : 

" It has been said this afternoon that the power of telep- 
athy is not. a common one. A few of us may have had 
some clear and even vivid experience at some time in life. 
Let us, for the sake of knowing more about it, tell frankly 
and openly what such experience was, if it has in fact come 
to any of us. We will first ask those who have had clear 
and strong evidence of telepathy, of which they can speak 
from personal knowledge, to rise and remain standing until 
they can be counted." 

Every one rose in the instant. 

They not only related what they had known of this 
power, but told of facts that had come to them from the 
lives of others whom they could vouch for as reliable. 

A young man wrote to us asking if it were true that 
there was such a power as telepathy. We replied, making 



PSYCHIC TELEPATHY 113 

the request that he should put that inquiry to the first fifty 
persons whom he should meet thereafter, in case he was on 
speaking terms with them. His answer was as follows: " I 
did ask fifty of my acquaintances if they had ever experi- 
enced such a thing as the thoughts of others coming to their 
own minds without the aid of any usual agency, such as 
speech, writing or signs. All of them had met with such 
experiences." 

A business man wanted to know if his mind was sound, 
and if so why it was that he could generally tell in advance 
what people were about to say. He even guessed or hit 
upon ideas that were strange to him, but that were in the 
minds of others just before he caught them. He thought it 
was an unusual experience, and wanted to know if others 
had ever experienced. We requested him to seek informa- 
tion on that point from the first fifty of his acquaintances 
whom he should meet. He did so, and wrote that they all 
had received ideas in just the way that he had. 

This makes it clear that the transmission of knowledge 
by channels other than the senses, is a universal faculty. 

The question that most interests the investigator is, How 
can such knowledge enter the mind? 

If you get a new idea it must come to you from some- 
thing that has happened before. Taste, smell, touch, sight 
or sound must originate, it, or give birth to the train of 
thought that produces it. There is no such thing as an 
idea that is not based upon a physical beginning. By this 
is meant that it must have had its start in something mate- 
rial. Every train of reasoning, every argument, every flight 
of fancy must be born in fact. 

As such all thoughts spring from the physical brain. The 
original thinker is only a link in the chain of physical pow- 
ers, or else he is given light by the aid of inspiration, as has 
been explained in a previous chapter. And inspiration is 
closely akin to telepathy. 

In the common activities of the subconscious mind, it 



ii 4 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

seems that the thought waves that originate in the brains 
of others are sent out to all humanity, but are not received 
or understood. In order to see what is meant, imagine a 
person in a car addressing his remarks to some one who is 
sitting near him. There may be fifty persons in the same 
car, and it may be standing at the depot. All could hear 
the remarks if they care to pay attention. Some are inter- 
ested in one thing and some in another. Some are reading 
the signs without. Some are listening to the calls. Some 
are absorbed in their papers. Some are engaged in conver- 
sation. 

The one man who is talking loud enough to be heard 
by all, is in fact heard by all ; but they do not pay attention 
to him, and his remarks fall on unconscious ears. 

A minister is preaching a dull sermon. Every word 
reaches the ears of his congregation, but few know what he 
is saying. They are busy with their own thoughts. In a 
party where two score persons are all engaged in lively con- 
versation, a young man sits near by and says nothing. He 
can hear every voice in the house, but he is trying to pick 
out the tones of a young lady in. whom he is interested. She 
is seated at the farthest end of the room, but her words 
are gathered up and stored in his brain, despite the fact 
that there is a constant volume of talk between her and 
the place where he sits. On the same principle the thoughts 
of other people are entering the subconscious mind of each 
and every individual, but they are not known because they 
are not brought to the attention of the conscious mind. 

As a multitude of sounds in a great city fill the brain 
and are not received into the ordinary mind, so multitudes 
of thoughts and ideas from all over the world are coming 
and going through your subconscious mind without being 
known. 

The only way, it seems at first glance, by which you can 
get possession of the subconscious knowledge, is to put the 
physical brain to sleep. But then you do not know any 



PSYCHIC TELEPATHY 115 

more than if you were wide awake. You "see that nature 
is very subtle. 

But a second person can use you when you are thus 
asleep. He can probe into the subconscious mind and se- 
cure facts and wonderful revelations, as has been done thou- 
sands of. times and as is being done now with great success 
to everybody but the one who is being used. 

LAW. — The lower the grade of telepathy the more 
obscure it is. 

Keen and shrewd as nature is, she closes out more of the 
physical dregs of other minds than she does of the things 
of value. For every human being to be a sewer through 
whose brain all the fiendish schemes of life are to pass and 
stain the walls of the mind, would turn this earth into a 
veritable hell. 

The mediums and clairvoyants are agencies of chaotic and 
senseless sewerage, mingled with enough of the real knowl- 
edge, when genuine, to prove the law under which they 
work. 

The nobler men and women of the world have brought 
forth the treasures of knowledge by higher processes, and 
their products have been pearls and diamonds, not mud. 

We cannot all be geniuses in the common acceptation of 
the term; but every one of us may become noble in thought 
and deed. To each man and woman is open the realms of 
true psychic telepathy, and then there is access to heaven and 
all the worlds of the universe, which may be entered in 
thought even while we dwell on earth The psychic mind, 
following out the gigantic laws that are stated in the later 
chapters of this work, may come into the possession of 
knowledge that surpasses the grandest dreams of the gol- 
den future. 



n6 




CHAPTER XXI. 



'_'„'_'--'„•_'„'.-'_'_':.'_'„ 



INTUITION. 



'~ r \T> 



.i.i.i,i„i,i,i 1,1,1 i , ~i . i T1T1 , ■ . . . i ..1,1, i . i"~ i~ i ii iTi ;,- 

|\ ITTLE BY LITTLE the powers come down 
the scale into the busy scenes of physical life. 
Their duties seem now to be confined to the 
purpose of helping struggling humanity. 
What is called an education is supposed to be 
book learning. The use of words, the correct 
way of spelling them, the ability to do mathe- 
matical work enough to secure an understanding of the 
values of things, and a few other branches, more or less 
useful, make up necessary book learning. 

But wisdom does not come in that way. Nor is any 
part of the book learning of earth useful in the life be- 
yond. In other words, the psychic world has no occasion 
to employ grammar, spelling, reading, arithmetic, or lan- 
guages. The best examples of college training have gone 
down to the grave carrying in the dead brain all the acquisi- 
tions of the university, every part of which dissolves and 
molders back to the soil. 

There is but one genuine education, and that tells us 
what man is, whence he came, where he goes, and what 
duties and lines of usefulness in this life are best adapted to 
his happiness and success both here and hereafter. 

He should know what his needs here are, what he can 
best do and do at his best, what he can accomplish here to 
make him a credit to this world ; for as he fits himself to 
live here most nobly, he at the same time secures citizenship 
in the universe. 

To lead such a life as that, he must make his earthly ex- 



INTUITION 117 

istence a success. He must met the counter-efforts of the 
thousands whose interests are ever encroaching on his field 
of labor, and on the results of his struggles. He ought to 
know the motives, the purposes and the plans of all men 
and women who can do him a wrong or wrest from him 
the fruits of his work. 

There comes into his life a power called intuition, which 
performs the service of taking him as far as the outskirts of 
the motives of others. He can cultivate this faculty by lis- 
tening to it, or he may allow it to hover all the while about 
him without recognition. It never speaks so plainly that 
its voice is absolutely certain. If it did, no man would be 
called upon to exercise his judgment and to weigh both 
sides of the important questions of life. 

But it comes to all men and women. 

It is increased when it is given attention and acted on. 
It is decreased when passion or prejudice holds sway. In 
successful lives it becomes a second nature. Human na- 
ture is read like mi open book, and the plans of others are 
all discounted long before they are acted upon. It is said 
that women have intuition in greater degree than men 
because they are not capable of reasoning. The average 
woman runs to the following chain of argument: "It 
must be so, for there cannot be so much smoke without 
some fire;" referring to the usual subject of conversation, 
the misdeeds of others. Another feminine argument is this: 
A Bishop acknowledged paying money to keep from the 
newspapers a bit of scandal that reflected on his chastity. 
A woman claimed to have knowledge of his misconduct, 
and he paid her money to keep the affair from the press. 
When this fact was known, every feminine mind said: " If 
he was innocent he never would have paid that money. Do 
you think that / would ever pay hush money unless I was 
guilty. No, a thousand times no! " To test this princi- 
ple a society with the consent of the police in a large city 
selected at random twenty families who were approached 



n8 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

with absurd charges. All were wealthy. All were given 
the opportunity to buy -silence on payment of a certain sum 
of money, and to the surprise of the society, every family 
decided to pay the money. Yet not one was guilty. On 
hearing of this, the feminine mind will reason as follows: 
" They must have all been guilty of something, or they 
would not have paid hush money so readily." And to such 
minds as have weak reasoning powers, conclusions are 
jumped at with bounds. 

Intuition therefore is a keener faculty with women than 
with ordinary men. But it is a more dangerous weapon ; 
for men who have acquired experience in dealing with hu- 
man nature are far more able to estimate the reliability of 
intuition and possibly to avert error. A woman of large 
experience in the world, coupling intuition with that ac- 
quisition, is a formidable individual. Some wives are better 
managers than their husbands and bring financial success 
into the family because of their combination of experience 
and intuition. 

We have just met a case where a man of active habits 
and great willingness to work, was made a widower when 
he was forty years of age. He had lost his farm by bad 
management. In a year he re-married. The farm was 
re-bought without any money, as neither had any; the same 
routine was re-established; dairy; crops; trading; and the 
humdrum details of the life in the country. But the new 
wife managed the husband. She stopped buying fertilizers. 
Crimson clover and lime were substituted, and the compost 
from the barnyard was mixed with old sod and made into 
a rich natural loam by the aid of deep plowing. She com- 
pelled her husband to cultivate the soil more deeply and 
oftener, on the principle that such manipulation took the 
place of expensive fertilizers which plaster mortgages all 
over farms. In three years their farm produced twice the 
crops per acre of any land in the county. 

Her intuition told her when to sell and not to sell the 



INTUITION 119 

products. Her neighbors got eighteen cents a pound for 
butter; she put it in molds nicely stamped, and got ten 
cents more a pound for it. They sold milk for one and a 
half cents a quart. She got five cents a quart. Nothing 
was wasted. It required no more work to do things right 
than in the old ways. Eggs were sold for thirty-six cents 
a dozen on an average the year round ; while her neighbors 
received less than twenty-four cents on an average. Hay 
was marketed at opportune times, and so were all the crops. 
In the fourth year, after the interest and taxes had been 
kept paid promptly, they began to reduce the mortgage 
which had been assumed owing to the fact that the holder 
of the security was a deacon in the church to which the man 
belonged, and he desired to help him all he could. In 
three more years the whole debt had been paid, and they 
are now saving money, with every prospect of being well- 
to-do some day. It is all the result of the intuitive powers 
of the wife. She is known as smart. Many business men 
and agents have tried to pull the wool over her eyes, but she 
knows them better than they know her. 

Many times we have been asked the question, What is 
the difference between inspiration and intuition? The an- 
swer may be given as follows: Inspiration is the power of 
revealing to great men and women and to geniuses, the 
knowledge of higher realms by which they are led to fame 
and lofty success. Intuition is the practical power that 
gives help to those who are engaged in the commonplace 
duties of life. 

But it has a broader scope under elevating conditions. 
It has been the good right hand of many a person in dan- 
ger. In detective life it is the sole source of success at 
crucial moments. We have volumes of letters and reports 
on this subject, and have learned from the lips of the 
world's best detectives of their constant use of the intuitive 
faculty. Pinkerton said that no man can hope to become a 
successful detective unless he possesses this gift. Impossible 



120 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

clews are run down and criminals caught by the quick leaps 
of thought from the mind of the intuitive realm. Could 
we devote here five hundred page to this one subject we 
could place before the reader the most wonderful cases of 
that kind that have ever claimed attention. 

No person denies that there is such a power as intuition. 

Some have had the direct help of this psychic agency and 
have been saved from misfortune or disaster by its aid. 
Being psychic it is closely allied to the class of warnings 
known as premonitions ; but the latter are suggestive of ac- 
tual beings at work to help humanity, while intuition is a 
power rather than a personality. 

Here is a man about to pass a tree as he goes home in 
the early evening. Just before he reaches the tree, a form 
comes to him and a hand points to the other side of the 
street. That actually occurred. It was a premonition. 
In another case that actually occurred, a man was approach- 
ing a tree under similar circumstances, and something 
seemed to tell him that there was a man concealed behind 
it. He crossed the road. In both cases a highwayman 
stood ready to strike down the approaching man, and in 
both cases he was foiled. But the latter case was an ex- 
ample of intuition. The close association of the two pow- 
ers only serves to show their genuineness. 

We have had communications with people for many 
years and have never yet found one man or woman who 
did not believe in intuition ; while more than ninety-five 
per cent, now believe in premonitions ; but comparatively few 
believe in spiritualism. 




121 



CHAPTER XXII. 

INSTINCT. 

OWN STILL LOWER in the scale of 
everyday, practical life, comes the power known 
as instinct. It serves the purpose of directing 
the action of the lower forms of creation. 
Birds and beasts are all led by its aid. The 
new born child is also assisted in some of 
its early habits. Were it not for instinct, the 
lips of the babe would not suck its food, and it would 
starve. This action is as complete in all its details as if 
it had months of experience back of it. Yet without so 
much as a first lesson, the child as soon as it is born will 
begin to take its food like a veteran. 

The swallowing action is also taught by instinct. With- 
out it the taking of food into the stomach would be im- 
possible. 

As the child grows older it does not need the aid of 
instinct; and this trait is abandoned in its operations, as 
fast as the imitation that comes from education or experi- 
ence is employed. 

If it were true that only the simplest habits in the lower 
animals were adopted without training, they might be at- 
tributed to heredity; although heredity is so great a mys- 
tery that it may be ascribed to a power akin to instinct. 
But animals, birds and all forms of lower life are constantly 
giving fresh evidence of a source of knowledge that cannot 
be accounted for on the theory of heredity. Nor is it a 
blind impulse. There is a power that speaks to the mind 



122 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

of the beast or bird and conveys specific information in 
some peculiar way. 

How does the bee know that the six-sided cell is the 
most economical shape for saving room and holding the 
greatest quantity of honey? It is not reasoning, for there 
is nothing on which to base the logical process of thought. 
It is not imitation, for there is no difference in the habits 
between bees that are orphaned without having gathered 
honey, and those that have been led by older companions. 

How do birds know when an early spring or a late spring 
is coming? The educated weatherman does not that. But 
many birds will delay their flight to the north in order to 
await the coming of a belated season ; while others will 
start earlier than usual when the spring is to be premature. 
Surely this cannot be heredity, nor is it taught by imita- 
tion. There is nothing in the sky or air to lead them on, 
for the freaks of the weather rarely deceive the feathered 
hosts. 

There are many reliable works on this subject; and they 
are worth reading if any person wishes to study this prob- 
lem for himself, and form an opinion as to what kind of 
power conveys information to the lower species of life. 




123 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
I - HYPNOTISM. | 



LEEP IS OF SEVERAL KINDS. If the 
nerves are weary, they must be given rest, and 
this is done by causing the brain to stop think- 
ing or acting, whether in study, or worry, or 
fear, or any other mental operation. If the 
muscles are tired, they need rest. When the 
vital centers which are known as the gan- 
glionic cells are exhausted, there should be the sleep of un- 
consciousness. Body, nerves and brain should be still. At 
the end of life, when the organic structure has run down, 
death is the sleep that cures all. 

But there is a kind of sleep that shuts off the conscious 
mind without putting the body or nerves into a state of 
slumber. This is a peculiar state of existence. One goes 
out of consciousness and immediately awakes into another 
state of consciousness, neither state knowing what is in the 
mind of the other. Nothing stranger can be imagined, and 
for years it was difficult to convince people that such a 
change was genuine. To-day every hospital of high stand- 
ing makes use of the hypnotic sleep to aid in effecting cures, 
especially if the heart is weak and some painful operation 
is needed. The body in such sleep feels no pain. You 
may cut off a leg and tell the patient that it is merely the 
act of putting on a fine suit of clothes and he will laugh 
with joy. You may stick pins all over him, run red hot 
irons into the flesh and do other acts of cruelty, and he will 
know nothing about the suffering until he wakes up. As 
long as the hypnotic sleep continues he will enter into any 



124 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

mood that is suggested to his mind. After he comes into 
ordinary consciousness, then the pain of the torn and muti- 
lated flesh will be felt in all its agony. 

Between the mind that has physical knowledge and the 
mind that has subconscious knowledge, there is a barrier that 
is not often pierced. It is the purpose of nature to close the 
clairvoyant faculty that is quite sure to follow the continued 
use of the hypnotic sleep in the same person, so that too 
much evidence of the psychic world may not be available. 
As it is, despite the fact that such evidence is all the time 
coming to hand, she makes it as difficult to understand as 
possible. 

If a person is in the conscious mind, it is a hard 
struggle to get hold of the facts that are running free 
in the subconscious mind. Hence hypnotism must pass 
through several stages of the most skillful manipulation 
before the subject will be permitted to give up the secrets 
beyond. 

This kind of sleep has many stages. 

In its lowest form it is a disease known as catalepsy. 

In a stage next above that it is merely the sluggish 
slumber that makes the person a tool for the performer 
and exhibitor, or the patient on the operating table at 
the hospital. 

After long continued practice and repetition, the nervous 
mentality of the subject becomes acute enough to develop 
a fair degree of clairvoyance, and then hypnosis is called 
the trance state. Two persons are needed in most cases 
of this kind ; one to cause the sleep and the other to be 
put to sleep, coming out of which in the subconscious state, 
the psychic mind is active. 

The English Society for Psychical Research and its 
American Branch also, as well as other similar organ- 
izations have all decided that hypnosis leads the way to 
clairvoyance or the trance condition employed by mediums. 
They have with equal certainty reported that there are 



HYPNOTISM 125 

some genuine mediums in the world who are able to 
reveal facts and secrets in the most amazing manner, but 
they stop this side of accepting the revelations as proof 
of the presence of spirits who talk to living persons through 
such mediums. 

By the use of the methods stated in the higher systems 
of magnetism any man or woman can practice self-hypno- 
tism and in time become a highly developed medium for 
clairvoyance and physical telepathy; but never for psychic 
telepathy. The latter branches off into a much more ethical 
process. 

When self-hypnotism has produced the results desired, 
it still stands alone and useless until the second person is 
present to call into action the powers that are thus be- 
stowed. Even when that is done, the subconscious mind 
of the individual is ignorant of what is known in the 
ordinary mind; and the latter, on waking,, has not the 
slightest perception of what has been conveyed to the 
subconscious mind.. Thus the gift is a useless affair, and 
some method is required to connect the two minds. 

What has most puzzled the investigators is the fact that 
this barrier exists between the two minds. Nothing is 
more certain than that it does exist. How to break it 
down has been the study of the keenest minds during the 
past fifteen years. 

It was at one time thought that an important step had 
been taken toward the solution when it was known that 
a person may enter into a wakeful state of hypnotism. 
That is, many persons act readily upon suggestions of others, 
whether spoken or written, and seem to be powerless to 
disobey except when a strong counter influence has been 
brought to bear. This class has two divisions: The first 
is that which includes persons who have once been placed 
under the hypnotic control of others, and who become 
obedient to the will of the latter without being manipu- 
lated or put into a specific sleep. We recall the case 



126 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

of a man who was passing on the other side of the street 
and who stopped at the demand of one who stood in the office 
on the second floor of a building. The demand was made 
in a whisper. It was winter and there was no possibility 
of the man hearing the whisper. At our suggestion, he 
was made to retrace his steps, then go ahead, then enter 
at the doorway of a building opposite, and finally come 
on the run into the office where we stood. The details 
were such, and our own requests so varied that it was 
wholly impossible for the man to have rehearsed the strange 
performance in advance. It was clearly the case of one 
who had secured hypnotic control so often that distance 
made no difference, and sleep was not required. The poor 
fellow was weak in mind, and died in less than a year. 

The other class includes those who are of feeble will 
power. They may be bent at the whim of almost every- 
body to do or not to do anythingg. They see in every 
suggestion an idea of command without choice on their 
part. They are not fools, so much as weak-willed people. 
Even that class has several sub-divisions that need not now 
receive our attention, except that there is a kind of indi- 
vidual who believes what his passions and prejudices tell 
him. He is the man who is first to join a mob. He 
wreaks vengeance on the innocent and, finding the truth 
at last, slinks home, hoping that he will not be discovered. 
You will see him at political meetings, making up the 
majority of the shouters. His mouth is wide open when 
in repose, and wider open when active. The peculiarity 
about him is that he believes what the speakers say: the 
country is going to the bowwows because of the misdeeds of 
the political party to which he does not belong. Hearing 
that statement, he looks from one man to another on either 
side of him, nods his head violently in approval, and begins 
to shout defiance to every party except his own. 

The same man is on the jury. He is swayed by passion, 
prejudice and mock sympathy. He has rendered more ver- 



HYPNOTISM 127 

diets of mis-justice than any other power in any age; and 
in this respect he is exclusively American. In higher rank 
we see the same kind of man sitting on the bench, known 
as the judge, allowing the lawyers to swing the wheel of 
justice out of its tracks by cheap and tawdy technicalities. 
To the hypnotized judicial mind a small point of law that 
serves no purpose except to impede the progress of justice, 
seems the only important thing in the whole universe, and 
he struggles to give birth to the hair-splitting decision 
which every sensible mind recognizes at once as a monstros- 
ity. 

We might mention examples without limit of these wak- 
ing cases of hypnotism. The one principle involved is the 
fact that suggestions from others dethrones the will and 
compels the mind to act contrary to the intention of a nor- 
mal mind. 

These walking classes of hypnotics are farther away 
from the psychic conditions than all other people. 

It is the sleeping class that are closest to physical telep- 
athy. They become mediums and clairvoyants after long 
continued practice, if so led by the aid of others. 

Many persons unintentionally put themselves into the 
hypnotic sleep and pass at length into the subconscious 
awakening without results. They have been discovered by 
accident in such process; and this has led some investigators 
to remark that perhaps many people have the same experi- 
ence without knowing it. 

In its higher forms, approaching the ethical stages, there 
is a losing of oneself when thoughts of great moment are 
occupying the mind. To be lost in thought, is a common 
expression. It seems as if the conscious brain gave way 
entirely at times to the coming of deeper thoughts than 
usual. 

The fact that catalepsy or the disease of hypnotism that 
comes from the habit of the mind to lapse and the body to 
lie as if in a trance, is associated with extraordinary genius. 



128 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

It is well known that Napoleon was a cataleptic, that Alex- 
ander the Great was a cataleptic, and that Julius Caesar 
had the same disease. Whether their genius and psychic 
powers were the cause of that disease, or it came first and 
stimulated those powers, is not fully understood to-day. 
But they were gifted with a knowledge of things and af- 
fairs that made them the wonders of their epochs. Facts 
and truths leaped into their brains as lightning springs from 
cloud to cloud. They were never misled as to the move- 
ments of their enemies in battle. But in peace they were 
all weak, because they were not laboring under that degree 
of excitement that sets in motion the psychic power. 

The principle at work in catalepsy is the shutting out of 
the ordinary senses, and the giving of the psychic power an 
opportunity to come to the front. To this must be coupled 
in men of genius the waking knowledge of what comes to 
the subconscious mind. As a great investigator has said 
very recently: " If you can show the way to bring the 
consciousness of the subconscious mind into the realm of 
the physical mind, you will solve all the mysteries of ex- 
istence. 

A phase of this latter condition is partly seen when a 
writer of unusual ability is engrossed in his work. For 
about fifteen minutes he is unable to get into his mood ; but 
at length he enters it and writes with fluency until dis- 
turbed ; then he is useless to his work for the rest of the day. 

Productions of genius are evolved in solitude where one 
must be left to the workings of the psychic power. A 
clergyman was in his study writing his sermon. Some one 
called and wished to see him at once. The matter was 
urgent. But his wife said: " I dare not disturb him. He 
is preparing his sermon. If he is interrupted he cannot 
go on with it for hours or maybe for a day." This state- 
ment is founded on a well-known truth. The weak ser- 
mons of to-day are the result of so much chop-work and 
errand-duties that are thrust on the clergymen. Give them 



HYPNOTISM 129 

their own time and place for sermon-construction, and the 
world will be the better for it. 

Great painters, sculptors, poets, architects, writers, and 
producers of inventions must be left to themselves. The 
right mood may not come on any summons; but it comes 
and goes, and must be seized at its first approach. Business 
men need the time for thinking and planning. They can 
be honest and yet successful if they find that inspiration that 
will enable them to render a better service to the public. 
New ideas bring a high market value if they are born of the 
psychic brain ; for nothing worthless comes from that source. 
Nearly every colossal enterprise that is honorable has been 
the result of some inspired idea. 

These are semi-waking forms of the highest stages of the 
power that sways the world. They certainly connect the 
two minds. 

But other ways are being opened at the present day. 
9 




130 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

i i~ /i'v i ,ivulvi ..i. i„i . .. i ,1.1 iT. i . . i i i~~ ~ 4 i , i ~ i i~ ~ ~~ 

SUPERSTITION. 

?(s/i*v ; fs?(v i „ i~ .•,.,.„. "i~ ~ vh. v i v i v i~iTi~ ~ T ~ ~ ~ ~<~ .ivii/ivi 7 ~i .1,1,1 v iVfv^xTK 

TILL LOWER we descend into the oper- 
ations of life, and come now to a study of 
the influence that enslaves more than ninety- 
nine per cent, of all the inhabitants of the 
world. There is no one so ignorant or so 
educated that superstition does not taint their 
daily existence. In this age of advanced 
thought more recruits to the ranks of the free are being 
made and we often hear the remark : " I am not super- 
stitious in the least, but I would not sit down to a table 
of thirteen, nor would I begin anything on a Friday." 

Yet such person is sure that superstition is a mere mental 
fear. 

Not long ago we heard a very refined and highly sensible 
woman decry against the belief in superstition ; but at 
the dining table she would not pass a dish of salt from 
her hand to another person's hand. Why not? It would 
be a sure sign of a quarrel. 

This fear may not be regarded as a power, but it 
exerts the full influence of a power, and that it stamps 
it as an evil ruler of humanity. 

A man who had built up a large fortune by his ability 
and who repudiated all opinions that leaned toward this 
power, afterwards became the most superstitious in- 
dividual we have ever met, and for the following reason : 
One Christmas day he sat at the table where thirteen 
persons were present. Next Christmas all of them had 
died but himself. He knew this to be the fact, because 



SUPERSTITION. 131 

they were his personal friends and he was present at their 
funerals. After that he lived in dread and died in the 
course of a few years. It was the fear that depressed 
him; and, whether there is any real power in superstition, 
it does incalculable harm by instilling fear into the mind. 

Many ocean vessels will not start on Friday for their 
voyages; their officers may not be superstitious, but they 
say the injury is done to the service by the dread which 
sailors would have of setting sail on that day. One 
captain remarked to us: "Why if we had a storm or 
danger arose in any form, the sailors who had left port 
on a Friday would be useless. They would feel sure of 
the coming disaster and would become cowards." 

Without exception it is true that the lower the grade 
of intelligence in the human mind the more it is swayed 
by superstition. In the African families there is constant 
fear of this power, and it does more than anything else 
to keep them ignorant and debased. Among negro serv- 
ants this same slavery of the mind is many times more 
abject than among the educated classes of the same race. 
Their employers have found it necessary to yield to their 
superstitious dread when they would not take one word 
or look of impudence from them. 

A book would be required to contain all the catalogue 
of superstitions that prevail among the educated white 
classes. Young women have the most abundant vocabulary 
in this respect. When they are grown up and get some 
hard knocks in the world of experience, they drop a few 
score signs from the list. It is a beautiful phase of human 
nature to hear the mature woman of sense describe the 
follies of believing in this power, and then give her friends a 
constant stream of evidence to the contrary, explaining each 
exception by saying: "It is a pet idea of mine not to 
do this or that, but it has nothing to do with superstition." 

The full measure of this power is seen only when the 
nervous system is thrown into a cataleptic fear by which 



132 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

self-hypnotism is induced. If you are weighted down by 
dread of any kind, you will do a great injury to your 
nerves and mind. Out of this fear came the influences 
known as witchcraft. If a shrewd man or woman knew 
of any person who had become a slave to superstitious fear, 
a control of a very serious nature could be secured, and 
thus it opened up a special kind of hypnotism. 

Physicians who have made investigations along this line 
have come to the conclusion that witchcraft did in fact 
exist. The age in which history charges it with most 
offenses was peculiarly an age of great superstitious fear. 
Some persons had over one thousand signs of evil, so 
many in fact that it was impossible to turn to the right 
or the left without invoking the spirits of demons, as they 
thought. 

Added to this was the mental darkness of the age in 
which they lived, and the criminal tendencies of the masses 
in Europe or the heavy religious melancholy of the Puritans 
in America, all of which destroyed the normal power of 
the nervous system. 

If you will note the effect of a nervous person alone 
in an old house at midnight, with strange noises in the 
room above and the cellar below, you have a condition that 
gives rise to the presence of spirits, so-called. Self-hypno- 
tism enters into the scene and creates sights and sounds at 
the will of the frightened mind. If in that lonely house 
where you are sitting in the dark at midnight, you have 
the corpse of a dead man in the adjoining room, you can 
get an idea of the age which gave birth to witchcraft. 

The demon-world is pregnant with such progeny. 

Superstition is the basis of ignorance. Not the kind 
of ignorance that is indicated by the inability to read and 
write, but the denser kind that has an incoherent idea of 
the duties and needs of life on this earth. Educated 
people are superstitious. Geniuses are enslaved by this 
power. Every actor is likewise weighted down. Nearly 



SUPERSTITION 133 

all business men are superstitious. Bankers have the same 
weakness, showing that a keen money-making mind is not 
free from ignorance. 

Whoever allows this power to influence them is sure to 
be hindered in their duties, for the latter must of necessity 
give way to the interference of this agency. When a boat 
is ready to sail on Friday, it should leave port, and not lose 
a day. When there are thirteen at a table, whether to dine 
or do business, there is some loss somewhere if the function 
is delayed or broken up. These are but examples. The 
grand total of notions or signs embraced in the whole 
category of the superstitious realm is so large that it would 
take a book to properly classify and describe them. 



134 



CHAPTER XXV. 

I THE DEMONS. 

1 




NE MORE DESCENT in the scale of the 
unseen powers and we come to the lowest 
realm of all. Here are the demons. In the 
making of the many wonderful and beautiful 
worlds in the universe, with freedom of will 
in every created being, some must fall, and 
there must be some place to which they fall. 
It is the opinion among the best minds of to-day that writers 
who are not directly inspired by the Supreme Being may 
nevertheless receive inspired thoughts as stated in an earlier 
chapter of this division. 

Among such writers are men like Milton. 
In his Paradise Lost he depicts the fall of the lost angels 
or beings, giving vivid accounts of their long descent 
through space, and their apparent endless falling headlong 
to the nether regions. So much potency of description 
cannot be the imagination of a mere physical mind. The 
very essence of the motive in that sublime poem is the 
dropping out of heaven of beings that might have inherited 
eternal bliss but for the fact that they have been allowed 
to choose their fates for themselves, just as you and all 
others have been given freedom of choice. 

In the same character of description the Bible confirms 
the story of the falling of the beings out of heaven. In 
fact that book of books cannot be interpreted in any other 
meaning. It will not do to ascribe to everything sacred 
an allegorical meaning, although that is an easy way in 
which to dispose of the otherwise unsolvable problems of 



THE DEMONS 135 

the Scriptures. Where the trope is, in the accounts of 
the fall of man and the fallen angels we have never yet 
been able to discover. 

Such a work as the Inferno of Dante has more or less 
of the semi-inspiration of Milton in it. It reflects some 
degree of psychic power. In it we are taught that there 
was a fall, and the nether regions are crudely depicted 
in the midst of a chaos of description that is more poetical 
than coherent. But there is the central idea in it that 
cannot be shaken by all these shortcomings. 

No person can go very far in the study of psychic 
telepathy without finding out the facts and laws that are 
set forth in the pages of this work that follow. 

LAW. — Earth is hell 

To what extent this statement may shock the mind of 
the reader it is not possible to conceive. No one has ever 
pretended that earth is heaven. Most students of crimi- 
nology have already come to the conclusion that earth is 
hell. But crimes and criminals alone cannot make a hell 
of any planet. 

LAW. — All created beings have been endowed with the 
freedom to choose their own fates and destined careers. 

This law is so well recognized that it need not be dis- 
cussed. 

The Creator could not associate with Himself any form 
of life that was not free. If one being in a million were 
to become rebellious, the percentage would be hardly a 
marring influence on the state of absolute perfection ; yet 
one in a million would, in the aggregate, produce a total 
of hundreds of millions or billions perhaps in the entire 
universe. 

Whether the fall was completed in one era, or is now 
in progress, cannot affect the principle involved ; although 
it is supposed that it occurred at one period only. Scien- 
tists agree that humanity is the acme of imperfection, judged 
by any standard; that it is as diabolical in nature as any 



i 3 6 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

creatures can be and not totally annihilate each other. In 
fact, from the beginning of time, the chief aim of man 
seems to have been to slay his fellow beings, and to add 
to the doom of death all the torture that can be invented 
in the diabolical genius of the human heart. 

There has never been an age of honesty or peace. 

The present time seems to us the best in all the history 
of the world, and it is full to the brim and running over 
with dishonesty, cruelty and evil. In all parts of the 
world, but more especially in the civilized countries, crime 
and wickedness of every description are on the rapid in- 
crease. Reports of investigators, including heads of police, 
say that in the past fifteen years there has been an alarm- 
ing increase in the number of all grades of crime and all 
kinds of penal offenses. 

The tortures that were practiced in all ages down to 
the most recent date in the leading countries, and that are 
practiced now in ninety per cent, of the world, have put 
Satan to the blush if the sacred accounts are to be taken 
for their face value. Diabolical, cruel, barbarous, fiendish 
and terribly demoniacal are the inventions that man has 
put into practice with the one idea of making his fellow 
beings suffer the most excruciating agony prolonged through 
as great a period of time as possible. No government has 
been exempt from this condition. No creed has not 
been stained by its guilt. In fact more people, more brave 
men, more helpless women and innocent children have been 
burned alive, or racked, or broken on the wheel, or pinched 
day after day with red hot irons, or otherwise mutilated 
by orders of the church than by the state in the countries 
that boast of the greatest civilization. To murder met 
the penalty of hanging, a painless death. But to have an 
opinion, a mere breath of the mind, was met by the most 
devilish tortures that human ingenuity could conjure up. 

It has been said that the age of such conditions has 
passed forever. This is not true. Men have been 



THE DEMONS 137 

burned alive in the United States within the past six 
months; some at the stake, some in houses for purposes of 
robbery, and some for revenge. Only last week a band of 
men forced three men, two women, and five children into 
a house, piled up faggots about it, and set it on fire. In 
the old times the victim at the stake was quickly relieved 
from consciousness by the smoke and flames ; but in a house 
where the inmates must fly from room to room as the 
hot flames creep upon them, the death is slow and torturing. 
The human heart is as hard now as ever, but the power 
of police suppression is greater. 

At a military college a young man was taken from his 
room at midnight, stripped of all his clothing, and carried 
to a river, the ice broken, and the poor fellow forced to 
stay under water until unconscious and nearly dead from 
the flooding of his lungs. On being taken out, he was re- 
vived, and the same treatment given him again and again. 
From a rugged and vigorous constitution, he was made 
so ill that he fell away and in a short time died. His name 
was William Jarvis and the hazing took place at West 
Point, the national military school. This young man was 
the personal friend and associate of the author in his young 
manhood, and he related these experiences in person. 

In one of the Western States within a few months, a 
young man was hazed by being tied to a tree and then 
burned slowly. The fire made more rapid progress than 
was expected ; and the boy, after suffering the most ex- 
cruciating tortures by slow burning, died. 

These are merely sample cases. They are equalled on 
every hand by the disposition to torture with the most 
fiendish cruelty the pupils who attend institutions of 
learning. A college president said : " I do not like to say 
it, but I think that more good will come from letting the 
public know the opinion of a man in my position than to 
keep silence, when I assert that there are many students 
who, if given freedom to haze their fellows, would revive 



138 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

all the tortures of the dark ages. The demon spirit is 
only dormant in the human breast in this age of advanced 
morality." 

In a leading magazine, a very able article on Chicago 
stated recently that the immense numbers of diabolical 
criminals of every grade from cutthroats up to runners 
and managers of houses of prostitution and politically sup- 
ported saloons, where crimes are nightly enacted without 
fear of punishment, proved beyond all doubt that humanity 
to-day is just as savage and just as fiendish as in the blackest 
period of Roman history when women and children were 
fed to famished wild beasts in the arena for the amusement 
of the assembled thousands. 

Surely a just God never made such beings as these. 
Either the inhabitants of this planet are freshly created at 
birth by the hand of the God of Love, or they are the 
product of the demons. As the earth is seeking always to 
blossom into beauty and kindliness, through its flowers, its 
adornment, its color, its exquisite dress and rich emblems 
of peace and sweetest tenderness, and through the noble 
characters that rise from the debris of its wickedness, there 
can be no doubt that God lives. 

This being true, there can be no reason to believe that 
the devilish beings that infest this globe are His direct 
work. In fact they are the product of their own past. 

LAW. — The earth is the dumping ground of the uni- 
verse. 

If the beings that dwell on this planet were created by 
the Supreme Being in just the moral condition in which 
they now exist, then that Creator is not God. If they were 
once brought into life pure and perfect, endowed with the 
power to choose their own fate, and have rebelled against 
the government of heaven, they are no longer fit to remain 
in an abode of peace and love. They must of necessity fall. 
If they are allowed to remain where they fall, their presence 
must always be a source of pain and suffering to those who 



THE DEMONS 139 

see them. It is not right that any part of a happy world 
should be devoted to the incarceration of demons, as fallen 
beings are called. It certainly would be a wrong to set 
off in each orb in the sky, a place where these demons could 
dwell. 

LAW. — A soul once created is immortal. 

As these demon souls must live on forever, it would be 
an injustice to inflict them on other beings who had been 
loyal to God. As they are immortal, they would then 
remain in those world-prisons forever. In such prisons 
they would be deprived of the power to free themselves. 
As they are all psychic beings the question of transit to 
one specific world is of no importance. 

The whole universe may be traversed. 

It was decreed that one orb alone should hold all the 
demon spirits of the universe, and they were sent to this 
earth. 

In order to maintain their own independence they were 
allowed to run as wild as they chose, and given food and 
drink with opportunities to clothe and shelter themselves 
as best they could. 

LAW. — The earth began as a rejected rock world, and 
has evolved its own progress until it was fit for the physical 
existence of the demons. 

Hardship after hardship has been placed in the path of 
man from the beginning of time. The rock has been cold 
on this globe for about one hundred million years. Man 
began life here about one hundred thousand years ago, and 
it is probable that the beings fell from their rank in the 
universe at that time. 

Days and nights, weeks, months and years are nothing 
in the psychic world. Whether it requires an aeon or a 
million centuries, is of no importance. Humanity might 
occupy a hundred thousand years in evolving from rock to 
physical life, and it would pass as instantaneous creation. 
Therefore it is immaterial whether man was directly given 



i4o THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

life on earth, or came to his present stage by the processes 
of improvement. 

LAW. — Physical life is the union of matter zuith the 
soul. 

When the beings fell out of heaven they could not ap- 
pear as physical beings until the rock of this planet had 
been molded into shape to receive them. Many changes 
were required. There must be pliable matter capable of 
living, of which the plant was the first type, containing 
sap which was the forerunner of blood, leaves which were 
the forerunner of the lungs, and roots which were the fore- 
runner of the stomach having digestive powers. 

Then food was essential before man took bodily shape, and 
this was brought about by the operations of nature such 
as rain, frost and the flow of waters, to wear away the 
rock, reduce it to sand and afterward mingle it with decay 
in order to produce loam, out of which man would be able 
to secure his food. All that he eats of whatever nature, 
comes from such loam, even if he takes the flesh of animal 
life as part of his diet. 

To accomplish all these changes required many thousands 
of years. In time the material of the earth was fit to 
be united with the soul of a demon, and man appeared, 
The proofs furnished by geology and other sources, show 
conclusively that every grade of prehistoric man was a 
demon; and there could have been no exception to that 
rule. After humanity had occupied this globe for many 
centuries, all the while in the form of savages, which are 
the basest of the human demons, the better spirits of peace 
and love sought to find scope in which to develop, and 
religion, inspiration and hope of immortality began to find 
room in the breast of mankind. 

Every statement in this chapter is a fact. 
It is an absolute, provable fact. It is verified beyond 
all doubt by the uses and practice of psychic telepathy; but, 
in addition thereto, it is proved by every writing on the 



THE DEMONS 141 

subject that has ever been issued. It is proved by every 
science that touches the subject, by every form of religion, 
by every substantiated belief, and by the conditions of the 
earth and its people, past and present. It is being proved 
here and now day and night, year in and year out. It is 
in harmony with all the problems that stand before the 
mind. It explains every phenomena of every kind. With- 
out it there is a hopeless tangle in the philosophies of the 
world. 

The laws and statements, therefore, that have thus far 
been made must be accepted as the only truths that bear 
on this great theme. 

They are proved with absolute certainty up to the present 
moment. 

But they will be sustained with cumulative evidence all 
along the way to the end of this book. 




142 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

1 THE DUMPING GROUND. 1 

§ $ 

ROOFS IN ABUNDANCE are everywhere 
obtainable of the fact that earth is the dump- 
ground of the universe. What is called evo- 
lution is merely the effort of nature to unite 
the lost souls with matter and effect a union 
that will give man, through the exercise of his 
free choice, the opportunity to make his fate for 
himself. It is the struggle of the ages to bring about this 
condition. In later laws we will see what are the direct 
sources of supply in maintaining the progress of life on this 
planet. 

The present chapter must be devoted to the consideration 
of the earth as the dumping ground of the universe. 

The universe is the whole sky with all the orbs that 
occupy it. 

To be a dumping ground means that there must be a 
place to send or dump the discarded beings collected from 
all the orbs of the sky. 

The first idea of a gentle religion is that the Creator 
is love, all love, all peace, all beauty of mind and spirit. 
It has also been taught that such a Creator brought into 
life the beings that first dwelt on this globe. It is well 
known that prehistoric man was a cruel and fiendish savage 
in whose breast not one particle of love or gentleness could 
find a lodging place. Since the dawn of history, the 
Mongolians, Egyptians and Ethiopians were the first peoples 
to come forward ; as the inhabitants of the southern part 
of Central Asia whence sprang the foundation of civiliz- 
ation, were much later in point of time. Yet if you look 



THE DUMPING GROUND 143 

into the character of the Mongolians, the Egyptians and 
the Ethiopians, you will find nothing but demoniac nature. 
They found their chief pleasures in cruelties, tortures and 
sensual debauch. 

The fact that is thus made prominent is that the first 
beings that came upon earth were demons; the second ar- 
rivals were descended from these and were also demons; 
the third arrivals were descended from them and were also 
demons; and it is only after a great lapse of time that 
the light of God, of peace, of love, and of the heaven-born 
desire for a true religion has found place in the heart of 
man. At the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and all other 
stages, the beings that came upon the earth were demons, 
demons, demons, demons, demons; and to-day the great 
mass of life on this planet is demoniacal, as has been ex- 
plained in the preceding chapter. 

That earth is a dumping ground is taken for granted. 
It is also proved by stronger evidence than any other fact 
in all the universe. 

That God is love and peace is also established from the 
other gigantic fact that He is rising up out of every mist 
of earth with love, peace and immortality in His trident. 
No one will deny that these attributes are seeking as- 
cendency to-day, and have been for centuries, slowly but 
surely; and they cannot come from out the heart of 
demons. Therefore they point with unmistakable proof 
to the sublime fact that there is a God and that the souls 
of men and women are reaching out for His hand. 

Here are two armies of facts marshaled against each 
other. 

Painful as it seems, it is our duty to show something 
of the conditions of this world that stamp it as the dump- 
ing ground of the universe. Volumes could be written on 
this theme. But a few salient facts will suffice. 

1. We start with the assertion that God is the Creator, 
and all is love and peace and gentleness. 



i 4 4 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

2. Having brought into life the beings that occupied 
the orbs of the sky, it was necessary in order to maintain 
love and peace in those worlds, to cast forth all rebellious 
souls; for it would have been contrary to the doctrines and 
the principles of love and peace to allow them to remain at 
large, a menace to all other human beings. On the same 
principle it is a wrong to loyal citizens on earth to permit 
criminals to have a share in their lives. 

3. The discarded souls were dumped on one orb in order 
that they might work out their own fate under the doctrine 
of freedom of choice. 

4. The first and all the hordes that have come on this 
planet have been demons and only demons, except in so 
far as now and then some soul chooses its better destiny 
and becomes again an inhabitant of heaven, as will be fully 
described in the later pages of this book. 

5. This earth is that dumping ground. A loving and 
peaceful God could not create the demons that have oc- 
cupied this globe for one hundred thousand years. They, 
therefore, must have been driven out of heaven as told by 
the inspired Milton ; or else they are an endless succession 
of demon generations. 

6. The latter claim cannot be true, for it is denied by 
the fact that the love and peace of God are breaking through 
the demon life of earth all the time. It is also denied by 
psychic telepathy. 

7. For more than ninety-six thousand years of demon life 
on this earth there was not one ray of hope, or peace, or 
love in the countless millions that dwelt here. 

8. Out of the succession of generations since history began, 
less than two per cent, of humanity have been free from 
the influences of demon life and character. 

9. When America was discovered, it was drenched from 
the northern limits to the southern seas, with the blood of 
victims that was shed to satisfy the hellish spirit of the 
people who lived here. To murder, to kill, to cut to pieces, 



THE DUMPING GROUND 145 

to burn at the stake, to torture, to prolong suffering into 
aeons of agony, — these were the controlling forces in human 
nature, and would be to-day were it not for the advance 
of another rank of life that is carrying the banner of 
peace and love. 

10. Similar tortures and demoniacal practices are 
abundant even now all over the globe. All Asia is given 
to them. All the Old World except a few nations still 
clings to the barbaric, although the barriers are fast 
crumbling before the march of better things. Russia that 
asks to be taken seriously in its claims to civilization, is 
a hot bed of torture and unceasing cruelties. 

11. In the few nations that call themselves civilized, such 
as the better peoples, the spirit of demon life takes on a 
higher coloring. Once when a savage wanted to take a 
wife, he went to where the maiden lived, clubbed her 
over the head until she was insensible, then carried her 
to his home. He did not ravish her until he had gone 
through this striking ceremony of marriage. To-day the 
demon spirits of rape, of fornication, of adultery, of Sodomy, 
of masturbation, of gonorrhoea, of syphilis, of venery, of 
sensuality in low and foul degrees, are everywhere filling 
the lives of humanity in the civilized nations. More than 
two-thirds of the better sections of New York City are 
called the tenderloin. If the prostitutes of Chicago and 
their male patrons were all coralled in one field, they 
would have numbers enough to set up a city larger than 
Boston. This one class of crime is cited merely to show 
to what an extent the demon character is still rampant. It 
is one example only. 

12. In London and Paris all the good of men and 
women, all that is worthy in soul and body of the great 
majority is given over to the infection of venery and 
venereal diseases. Eighty per cent, of the population of 
those great cities is thus devoted to demon life. The 
police know it. They say the only way is to let the 

10 



146 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

criminal tendencies run their course, and the fires will 
burn out in death or hopeless disease. There is no cure. 

13. The accumulated murders that occur in the civilized 
countries make an immense total. They are so common 
that the public mind is indifferent to them. Even self- 
defense is murder, although the slayer is not the guilty 
party. The assailant invited his own death. Suicides 
are murders, or the result of wasted lives or blasted hopes, 
with the spirit of demons running riot after years of defiance 
of the laws of life. Wanton negligence resulting in death 
is a murderous spirit; and the two hundred thousand deaths 
from accidents in America every year are the fruit of this 
wanton disregard for human life. 

14. Lesser crimes are so abundant that there are hun- 
dreds of books written to describe them. There are endless 
laws made to punish them. There are prisons, jails, peni- 
tentiaries, and penal institutions in every part of our fair 
land ; despite which fact, only one per cent, of the criminals 
are ever punished. What the demon spirit is may be seen 
in mob violence. In the wild West all men and women are 
rough in manner and many an innocent victim has fallen to 
earth by the hand of summary vengeance. The hanging bee 
may often be deserved, but it denotes a vicious soul both 
in the victim and the mob. In the olden days of the 
past few generations, men and women were tarred and 
feathered. Even if they deserved it, the heart that can 
participate in such methods is not the offspring of love and 
peace. Few of the mob are ever punished. 

15. In the past twelve months, right in the very age 
in which we live, more than one hundred mobs have taken 
life in the United States, the land of the highest moral aims. 
Of the victims of such rule not all are guilty. Men are 
brutally mutilated. Despite the fact that we boast of the 
enforcement of law, very little is done to check the progress 
of riots. In any city a crowd may assemble on short notice, 
may wreck property, slay innocent people, and melt away 



THE DUMPING GROUND 147 

into their haunts without a finger being raised to bring the 
guilty to justice. The claim that we are a government by 
the people is true ; for there might arise one thousand mobs 
in this country and instantly render the government helpless. 
One mob can do that much. In the summer of this year 
a man in the most public streets of New York City was 
carrying his boy home. Some one raised the cry that it 
was a case of kidnapping. In a few moments a thousand 
furious people were chasing the father. He ran into a door- 
way, but was unmercifully beaten and nearly killed before 
the police rescued him. When the mob learned its mistake, 
it slunk away. Deaths have followed such uprisings, and 
if proof comes of the innocence of the victim, the mob slinks 
away to its lair, licking their blood-red chops like the savage 
beasts of which they are cousins. There is no redress. The 
government is helpless. 

16. There are records made in the past eight years of over 
one thousand instances of cruel and horrible tortures inflicted 
on men and women by robbers to compel them to give up 
the secret of their hoarded earnings. The agony that is 
inflicted on the physical body by such demons is the result 
of cunning invention as deliberate as the character of hell 
can make it. And the fiends are not punished. If earth 
were a world of peace and love, there would not be one 
fiend on its surface. Now there are hundreds of millions. 

17. In every department of existence the spirit of the 
demon is seen. Beasts are all savage by nature. Some 
have been tamed by long association with the gentler people, 
but from motives of selfishness, as the help that can be 
rendered by cattle, horses and other animals is coveted. 
Man will be tame to an animal that he wishes to tame, 
yet will use that animal for his savagery against his fellow 
beings. Some of the noblest types of horses are ridden 
by the millions of warriors of the Mohammedan religion 
whose cry of encouragement is: "Paradise will be found 
in the shadow of the crossing of swords." This means 



148 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

that battle, whereby the swords of their own followers are 
crossed with the swords of their enemies, is the threshold 
of heaven ; or in other words, that murder, slaying, tortured 
bodies and hellish minds are the necessary steps to eternal 
happiness and immortality. The motto itself is the brand 
of demon life. The sought for goal is the hope of a demon. 
Nothing more fiendish can be conceived than the doctrine 
that paradise or heaven can be bought by murder. Yet 
there are more millions that live in that light than are 
found in all the civilized nations of earth put together. 

1 8. A band of emigrants left Europe to get rid of op- 
pression. They came to America. Here they found not 
one tame beast; all was savagery. Reptiles, insects, vermin, 
and the barbarous Indians. They lived in the midst of 
demon life of every kind. To-day the savage beasts and 
reptiles have been pushed to the woods, and the Indians have 
been almost exterminated by the hand of civilization. But 
earth when it became the dwelling place of humanity was 
nothing but a dumping ground for the lost souls that were 
compelled to seek hope here amid the most uninviting 
prospects of all the universe. Millions have fallen prey to 
poison. Millions have been slain by wild beasts. Billions 
have been killed by the hand of their fellow beings. What 
greater chain of proof could be wanted to show that this 
earth is the dumping ground of all the sky? 

19. How many billions upon billions have been slain by 
disease? Is sickness, suffering and premature death a 
heritage from a loving God, or a fitting association for 
demon life? If this earth were an abode of peace and a 
mere stamping ground for a better land, there would be no 
necessity for such a chapter as this. There would be no 
reason for all the suffering, all the agony, all the tortures, all 
the malice and hatred that have piled to the height of moun- 
tains in the centuries that have rolled away. Disease is a 
terrible infliction. Yet it is universal on this globe. Its 
very presence is a lie to the idea that the people are created 



THE DUMPING GROUND 149 

originally in such conditions. The mind that made the 
millions of stars and star-worlds is a Master Genius. Im- 
perfections have no place in such a creation, as they are 
wholly unnecessary. There can be no other conclusion 
but that the freedom of each soul has been the undoing 
of some, and that they are here in hell to work themselves 
out by the exercise of the same dominant spirit of liberty 
that brought them here. 

20. Everywhere the evidence is cumulative that this planet 
is filled with demon life. Weeds, vermin, inseces, reptiles, 
savage beasts and foul diseases of both the vegetable and 
animal kingdoms, furnish a ceaseless dirge in the march 
of evil influences that hover about this realm. 

21. The kind of moral power that was brought here with 
the fallen souls is easily seen in the malignant motives of 
the human heart. Revenge is a common trait and will 
blind all the other faculties. Libel and slander, envy, ar- 
rogance, a disdain for the people who are lower in the scale 
of wealth but far more honest than those who, through graft, 
have robbed the great worthy classes of their rightful 
winnings, the wanton waste of time in the debauchery of 
society, the silly and imbecile pleasures of the night-men 
and the night-women who waste life, moral health and the 
hope of happiness in their carousals, all tell the one plain 
story of the demons. 

22. Selfishness is so mean an attribute that it ought not 
to find lodgment in any heart; but it is as nearly universal 
as the air itself. To gratify this passion for gain by unfair 
means, all the moral code is thrown to the winds in the 
belief that there is no one to see or to know what the mind 
and heart conceiveth. So wrongs have been done in the 
name of shrewdness, and robbery has been committed for 
the sake of taking from others what the dishonest heart 
cannot win by its own merits, leaving the innocent victims 
to their griefs. The crafty mind is the demon mind. 

Earth is the dumping ground of the universe. 




150 



CHAPTER XXVII. 
UNSEEN FUNDS. 



HAT WE CALL A FUND is a massed col- 
lection of an unseen power; each giving rise to 
a separate fund. It is not in fact set apart from 
the location of other vitalities, but fills the 
|£ N ether that surrounds the earth in association 
with other massed collections. These may be 
studied by the direct aid of psychic telepathy, 
or may be fully understood by an analysis of the laws which 
control them. For the purposes of the present work we 
will describe them from the latter standpoint. 

LAW. — There is a universal fund of mind that surrounds 
the earth. 

This massed collection of intelligence is found at work in 
the smallest forms of existence, and it is never absent no 
matter how high or low the grades may run. It is known 
that the basis of life is protoplasm. This begins every kind 
of living thing, whether of plant or animal creation. The 
composition of protoplasm is the cell. Every cell has a 
nucleus. Every nucleus has a nucleolus, and every nucleolus 
has an id. Here is held the brain of the drop of matter. 

This brain comes into existence by drawing its intelligence 
from the fund of mind that is universal. Propagation is 
carried on by division. Each cell feeds on the matter 
around it, then grows larger and separates. One becomes 
two. Two become four. Four become eight, and so on. 
This is growth. It is the only way in which a plant, a 
tree, a blade of grass, a drop of blood, and animal or a hu- 
man being can grow. 



UNSEEN FUNDS 151 

The same protoplasm that feeds a plant, also feeds a man. 
The reason why one develops in place of the other is because 
the brain in the cell learns the purpose of its existence and 
executes it accordingly. If a plant is in process of formation, 
the cell will make a plant. If that plant is a rose, the cell 
will make it nothing else. If the rose is a wild one or 
a cultivated one, then the cell must see that the right kind is 
produced. If the cultivated rose is of a special variety, that 
variety alone must be secured. 

Color of flower, shape of leaf, length of stem and kind of 
fragrance, all are locked up in the tiny brain of the id in 
the cell or drop of protoplasm. This cell grows, as we have 
said, by absorbing matter around it ; but the matter which 
it absorbs has no brain, no id, no mind. Yet as soon as the 
cell has divided, there are two brains in place of one; and, in 
about twenty-one generations, there will be a million brains 
in place of one. Each will have a share of the fund of 
mind that surrounds the earth. 

In each cell is locked up the whole history of the individual. 
You begin life in a drop of protoplasm so small that it could 
not be seen without the aid of a microscope. Yet in that 
drop was enclosed all that you have grown to be, all the 
characteristics of your mind and body, all the diseases that 
you inherited taints of, if any, all the peculiarities that 
past generations for centuries have handed down to you, all 
you will be on this earth, and the inclination of your per- 
sonality toward one goal or another in the great divide. 

When that cell began its life, it was certainly very small 
to hold so much. Even the soul might be compressed into 
a space as tiny, as size is of less importance than energy. As 
soon as growth began the cell grew, divided and made two; 
and so on until you were born. Every detail of the won- 
derful body in which you dwell was thought out in that cell ; 
and, as new cells came to add to it, they were given their 
share of the fund of the universal mind. Every drop that is 
large enough to be seen by the naked eye contains countless 



i 5 2 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

billions of such cells; and there are countless billions of big 
drops in your body. When bones were wanted, the brains 
of the cells were alert to build bone. When hair, or skin, or 
nerves, or veins, or organs, or other details were needed, the 
brains of the cells built just what was wanted. Thus the 
mind in the body became a greatly increased mass, sprung 
from one tiny cell. The increase could not have come from 
nothing. It must have come from something. That some- 
thing may be anything you please to call it, and we will 
name it the fund of mind. It is not essential what it is. 
Names are only for convenience. Therefore you may desig- 
nate what furnished the increase of intelligence in the body 
as it grew from the cell to a great organism, and we will 
call it the fund of mind. 

Whatever has cell life, has its part of this fund of mind. 

Every living part of your body is a mass of cells, and each 
has its brain. Where they most congregate we find the 
collective mind, as in the head; for there must be a centrali- 
zation of power and thought. But the evidence of intelli- 
gence in all parts of the body is abundant, and leaves no 
doubt that a man thinks with his whole being, not alone 
with the brain within the skull. 

In a mass of earth we see nothing that would make a 
peach tree grow in one place and an oak in another. The 
dirt is the same. But let the seed of either be planted, 
and it will open out its germs and send forth a tiny cell. 
One only begins the life of a tree. It grows in the same way 
as does the human cell, and is the same in fact; )'et it will 
produce, not a human body, nor a dog, nor a horse, but 
a tree; not any kind of a tree, but the kind that is intended 
from the nature of the seed to be grown. It will take from 
the earth the identical particles that might have gone into the 
oak, and weave them into its own cell-increase to produce 
the peach. 

If the exact variety of an improved peach is wanted, the 
branch is cut off and made to root. This is fed by the same 



UNSEEN FUNDS 153 

soil, cell by cell, and each blind particle of dirt that is drawn 
into the organism will learn what variety of peach is needed, 
and will draw from the fund of mind just what intelligence 
is required, and the new tree will be a counterpart of the old. 

The human brain may take as much from the fund of 
mind as it can use, just as the electric battery is supplied 
from the fund of electricity, as much as it can hold. One 
man draws more than another. Some men use little. The 
collected mass is free to all to take what they can assimilate. 

Thus minds differ in their intelligence. 

Nature herself is an intelligent personality that knows 
every need of humanity, and she is ever present in the great 
mind of the world. 

LAW. — The earth is surrounded by a universal fund of 
demon life. 

A psychic being lives in the ether. Demons are kept 
within range of this planet. They have no tendency heaven- 
ward. Their faces are turned toward the soil. They are 
not permitted to harass or come near those human beings 
who are seeking escape from their influence. But they 
stand at the side of every wrong doer. 

What evidence is there of these facts? 

Proofs are abundant on every side. The study and prac- 
tice of psychic telepathy will bring complete knowledge of 
these demons to the very door of the investigator. But 
such means of proof need not be resorted to, as we find 
evidence in many other ways. 

In the first place let us talk for a moment with the be- 
liever in religion. You wish to know more about the ques- 
tion of the presence of demon life all around the earth. You 
already have learned that the lost souls have been cast out of 
the sky and that this planet is the dumping ground for 
them. In harmony with this thought is the oft repeated ref- 
erence in the Bible to the devils that gain entrance into the 
lives of men and women. Christ said to one of them : 
" Get thee behind me, Satan." In His ministrations He cast 



154 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

out devils from humanity and these demons went into the 
swine. 

There are many intelligent people to-day, as there have 
always been, who believe that demons infest some lives. 
Then we have the reports of criminals who have declared that 
they have been impelled on to the commission of their deeds 
by personal devils that have come into them. So strong is 
this testimony that it must be accepted as having much 
weight. We could cite case after case that has met with the 
approval of learned investigators where men have been pos- 
itive that they have been in the power of demons. The old 
time expression that is used in the scriptures, " possessed of 
the devil," and " possessed by devils," cannot be taken as a 
figure of speech. 

A brain that is excited by fever or inflamed by drink, 
or that is on the verge of nervous collapse, assumes a magni- 
fying power that is remarkable. In typhoid the brain is 
distorted. Things that actually are seen by the normal eye, 
now grow longer, taller and grotesque in shape; but their 
identity is not lost. Yet when the excited cells are given 
still greater power of vision, beings come before the eyes. 
They are not shapes of things turned into monstrosities; but 
are actual figures of demons. Whence do they come? 

The hasty reply is: " They are imaginary images." How 
can they be imaginary? It is true that they do not exist in 
fact before the eyes when the brain is in health ; but the 
distorted optic nerve now is endowed with a keener power 
through the fever that racks and heats the blood ; and the 
images that come before it, while they seem to stand forth 
in the room or to move about the sufferer, are viewed only 
by that individual. They may be in the head, inside the 
brain; but that does not make them imaginary. How can 
the sense of sight behold demons that do not exist some- 
where? How can a thing be imagined that has such definite 
shape and is so active? 

Here is a man who has too long indulged in liquor. He 



UNSEEN FUNDS 155 

sees snakes. They are coming to him. Now they crawl up 
his legs, wind themselves about his body, and stifle him by 
tightening their folds around his neck. He is fighting them. 
He avoids the fangs, but strives to drive the body away, 
using almost superhuman strength in the struggle. To him 
these reptiles are real. As all men who have delirium see 
actual beings of some kind, always horrible and demon-like, 
it must be true that the brain is given a power similar to 
that of the hypnotic. He beholds facts that are not known 
by the people about him. He unfolds secrets that are some- 
times very important. In the peculiar condition of the brain 
that attends hypnosis, these unusual powers follow. At this 
writing we have the results of a new case that has been called 
to our personal attention, and of which there can be no 
doubt. A young man who had been hypnotized, was made 
to talk on a charge of theft that had been lodged against a 
servant, who had been arrested. The circumstances were 
against the latter. But the hypnotized young man saw the 
article that had been lost. He went to the place where it 
lay, and handed it to the owner who at once admitted that it 
had been dropped there by accident, and that the servant 
was wholly innocent. 

In preceding chapters in this division we have discussed 
the power of clairvoyance that follows oft repeated uses of 
the hypnotic sleep. The subject takes up any suggestion that 
is given him, and obeys to such an extent that he will perform 
deeds that are impossible to those who control him. In other 
words, the hypnotic is capable of doing things that only a 
psychic power can execute. In a long line of experiments, " 
such persons have been told to describe the demons that 
are all about them. They at once proceed to this task, and 
what they reveal corresponds with the visions seen by fevered 
patients, as well as sufferers from delirium tremens and per- 
sons whose nerves are broken down. 

Of all the mediums in the world, about one in a thousand 
is genuine; all the others being skilful frauds, although 



T56 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

even they may be partly endowed with clairvoyant gifts. 
The English and American Societies for Psychical Research 
have employed many mediums ; and have found a very limited 
number for whose genuineness and reliability they are able to 
vouch without hesitation. 

When a medium is found that commands the full faith of 
scientific men, the revelations made are always astounding; 
and many of them have been found to be not only true but 
of a nature that baffles all explanation except on the theory 
of clairvoyance. Now let any of the genuine mediums be 
asked to interpret the demon life that surrounds the earth, 
and the results are amazing. The medium is at home in 
that circle. Proof after proof is furnished of such life, and 
the demons are similar to those seen by the fevered brain. 

They are abundant everywhere. 

The drunken man who is confronted by a horrible shape, 
is not deluded. The only seemingly unreal thing about it is 
that no one else can see the shape. He beholds it because it 
is there. Others cannot see it because they do not possess the 
inflamed brain that is given the power to peer into the 
psychic atmosphere. 

It would be absurd to say that the horrible image is a 
vagary of the mind, that it dwells only inside his brain. But 
suppose that were true. What of it ? A shape cannot dwell 
within the brain unless it is there. A drop of blood cannot 
contain the form of a giant whose eyes, head, horns, hoofs and 
general appearance are those of a complete being, unless such 
being exists either in the brain or in the air about the suf- 
ferer. 

Snakes, beasts of the most savage mien, spiders that ex- 
ceed in their terrifying make-up the most detestable shapes 
that ever crawled on earth in open life, fiends, devils, dragons, 
and grotesque images are actually present to the fevered 
brain. From them the idols and forms that are worshipped 
in the Orient were designed, as lias been claimed by some in- 
vestigators. The gods of mythology must have had some 



UNSEEN FUNDS 157 

instigation, for they were numerous and almost as varied as 
the shapes seen by the drunken man. 

In the early chapters of this book that discuss the nature 
of sound, as well as ghostly sounds and ghostly violence, it 
has been shown that the brain-cells are endowed with a seem- 
ingly strong magnifying power. When applied to sound 
waves, it turns into loud blows the gentlest throbbing of 
the blood vessels. But undue nervous strain is necessary to 
effect this condition. Sound makes use of the air masses. 
Light travels by impulses of the ether. In the ether the 
demons dwell, even occupying solids, as substance is not 
known to them until they are habilitated in bodies of flesh 
and blood. 

These laws being true, it follows that the vision alone 
must recognize the demons. They have no part in sound or 
touch. 

The inflamed brain that magnifies its own sounds into 
blows of violence, can thus make them seem to be created 
sounds; and for convenience it is said that the brain in fact 
creates the sounds. But it does not. The sounds are there. 
No matter how badly frightened the nervous woman is, no 
matter how much over-wrought her nerves are, no matter 
how loudly the vibrations of the blood vessels in her brain 
may seem to pound, or what sounds she may hear, they are all 
actually there although magnified. The brain cannot create 
something out of nothing. 

If there were no pulsations of the veins and no flow of 
blood in and out of the brain, and nothing to be magnified, 
she would sit in absolute silence. What seems to be a total 
absence of sound is a veritable racket to the inflamed or 
frightened and nervous brain. But the sounds are there. 
The normal mind cannot hear them, but the excited brain 
will surely be overwhelmed by them, because they are there. 
It is merely a question of something small to start with, and 
a fevered brain to magnify it to size in the one sense of hear- 
ing. You cannot extract something from nothing. 



158 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

On the same principle the sight of horrible shapes must 
have a basis in fact. That basis may be very small. The 
demons that are seen are present either inside the brain or 
out in the space in front of the individual who beholds them. 
If they are inside the brain, they are of microscopic size, but 
have a complete form and complete intelligence. 

By referring to the early pages of this chapter, an account 
will be found of the tiny cell which holds the intelligence of 
a complete human being, soul, mind, heredity and all the 
characteristics of a coming man, wrapped up in a compass so 
small that it can be seen only by a microscope. If the hu- 
man body can be condensed in a shape so small as that, it 
would not be difficult for a demon to likewise dwell in an 
unseen cell that could come to view only when the inflamed 
power of the brain enlarges it to the mind. 

This claim is based on the supposition that the demons 
are seen inside the brain, and is interposed here for the pur- 
pose of meeting the doubts of the student. In either case the 
demon is a reality. If it is of microscopic size it is real. If 
it is of full grown size it is just as real. Therefore it makes 
no difference in principle what size it has or where it act- 
ually dwells. 

But history, religious knowledge, scientific facts and the 
revelations furnished by psychic telepathy confirm the fol- 
lowing: 

LAW. — Demons co-exist with all earthly matter and life. 

By this is meant that they are of every size, and that they 
are in solids and substances. They simply occupy everything. 
The only exception is the body and home and surroundings 
of the man or woman who is free from them, as will be 
shown in the next division of this book. 

A conception of any psychic condition that has been long 
held by the general world is true in fact, or has some basis. 
Knowledge may not come through the process of reasoning, 
but arrives through inspiration or intuition, or some of the 
powers that surround humanity. 



UNSEEN FUNDS 159 

You cannot turn to the history of any country, whether it 
be religious or common, without finding an overwhelming 
mass of evidence to prove the belief in demons and various 
forms of unseen life. We make full allowance for the cre- 
ations of superstition and the warped science of the dark 
ages ; but superstition is a power, and out of its depressing 
influences grew witchcraft, an art that is practiced extensively 
to-day by the negroes of this country. Such influences are 
subdued as higher powers dethrone them, but they have not 
been driven out of the world. 

No one doubts the fact that Milton wrote largely from 
inspiration, as did Shakespeare and other geniuses. In II 
Penseroso, we find the following lines from Milton's pen : 

" Those demons that are found 
In fire, air, flood, or underground, 
Whose power hath a true consent 
With planet or with element." 

Quotation after quotation might be made from this and 
other writers demonstrating the existence of a belief in de- 
mons that has not died out to this day. Christ taught the 
presence of devils and of evil spirits. All mythology is filled 
full to the brim with countless demons and unseen deities that 
are all around humanity. Of course, such evidence is not 
scientific; but it shows that, in an age of grand civilization 
far surpassing the intelligence of our own era, the people, not 
having any other religion, built upon their own experiences. 
There is surely some basis for their immense population of 
demons and deities. 

Human activities are reflections of the unseen powers. 

In sacred lore as well as in the Scriptures themselves, Sa- 
tan is referred to as " the prince of the powers of the air." 
Whether the Bible was inspired or not in the sense usually 
attributed to it, its assertion stands forth as one, of the towers 
of strength throughout all the centuries in which the chief 
religion of civilization was developing and taking on its best 



160 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

growth. The fall of man, if it did not occur in heaven, as 
Milton describes, had its enactment on this planet. 

It has occurred somewhere, and that is all that is im- 
portant about it, as far as this present consideration is con- 
cerned. The entire human family has fallen, is debased and 
wretched, save the few here and there who are determined 
to extricate themselves from the bondage of the demons. 

Since it is true that man has fallen, whether from heaven 
or from a better condition that once prevailed on earth, 
there can be no doubt that evil is everywhere on this planet. 
When a child is born, it takes to itself a soul that does not 
and cannot come from heaven, but that fulfils the routine 
of life now being carried along the generations that succeed 
each other. The story of this soul is told in the third di- 
vision of this work. 

LAW. — Crime, dishonesty, insanity and suicide are in- 
stigated by the demons. 

All forms of life that exist about the earth, waiting to be 
born into the body, are eager for the opportunity to take the 
place of those living. They therefore exert a bad influence 
over every human being if they are so permitted. Not one 
person in a million would commit a crime, or would be dis- 
honest, or break down in mind or take life if it were not for 
the sway which the demons have over the minds and pur- 
poses of those whom they can lead into such debasement. 
The idle person is most readily recruited into the army of the 
demons, and falls most easily. The idle poor and the idle 
rich are ripe for evil work. The performance of honest 
duties makes the mind busy and the individual safer. Once 
the shackles of the demons are thrown off, it is hard for 
them to be again placed about the victims. Christ knew 
this when He said : " Get thee behind me, Satan." He was 
addressing the actual prince of devils. It was no figure of 
speech. It was no imagined devil. Such a view is flatly 
contradicted by the statement that He cast out devils, and 
the devils fled into the swine and drove them into the sea. 



UNSEEN FUNDS 161 

A figure of speech would not assume such a degree of activ- 
ity. He was tempted of the devil, and He commanded 
Satan to get behind Him, and furthermore cast out devils 
and they went into swine. There is no possible way in 
which this series of statements can be disposed of unless they 
are taken just as they are made. If they are not true, then 
the history of Christ is not true. If actual devils were not 
driven out of men and women, then there were no disciples, 
no followers of the Saviour, no Roman soldiers, no Pilate, no 
Iscariot, no City of Jerusalem, and no Palestine. The plain 
fact is stated in such a way that it has but one interpretation. 
The proof of the writing of the four gospels is so strong 
that, if they were to be totally lost to the world, the whole 
story could be re-produced from personal letters written in 
the first century among the followers of that religion. 

This fact makes it impossible to deny the genuineness of 
the New Testament. 

This fact makes it a certainty that Christ did live as 
stated, and that He did do the deeds ascribed to Him, and 
did utter the words which are recorded. There can be no 
escape from the conclusion that He knew whereof He spoke. 
He knew that devils and demons were everywhere present, 
and that humanity was subject to their influence unless they 
were driven away. 

And so from all sides the proof is overwhelming that de- 
mons exist and control the earth. 
11 



163 



THIRD DIVISION. 



THE GREAT DIVIDE. 



i6 5 




CHAPTER XXVIII. 
DOUBLE LIFE. 



N EVERY HAND the proofs of two kinds 
; of life are abundant. The man who fails to 
acquire a belief in the future existence, is sure 
that this life is all there is for him. He goes 
'down to his grave thinking that he will not 
wake again ; that his body will be food for 
worms, which may be true, and that when it 
has dissolved he will have gone back to earth. The particles 
of material that pass into the general fund of soil will un- 
doubtedly serve to fertilize some patch of sod or nourish a 
tree; but will never again live as a new being. 
As far as the body is concerned, he is correct. 
Science tells us that in the body a vitality lives; also a 
mind ; and something that is neither, but that passes out at 
the moment of death. Substantial proof has been obtained 
of this last fact, as will be seen by referring to the first 
division of this book. 

LAW. — All life is divided into two parts, physical and 
psychic. 

That which is physical is material only. It is that part 
that will be resolved into earth after the body dies. What- 
ever lives on is psychic. It is a question whether or not the 
mind will survive. In dying, if it does in fact perish, it 
may hang for a period in suspense before it dissolves. The 
probability is that only the psychic mind lives after death. 

What we call the psychic life is a finer form of the phys- 
ical. This has been explained in a preceding chapter. Light 
is really physical, but is called psychic because it is the im- 



166 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

pulse of ether waves, and is associated with that division of 
existence. So the subconscious mind is psychic. And so 
must be the soul or spirit. 

LAW. — There are two kinds of interpretation, the phys- 
ical and the psychic. 

The physical form of interpretation is that which depends 
on the proofs offered by the five senses. If a flower has a 
certain odor, the translation of that odor is made by the sense 
of smell and conveyed to the brain. Without the sense of 
smell there could be no interpretation of that fragrance, and 
it would be wholly lost on the individual. The same is true 
of the sense of taste. Some things are bad for the health and 
they are generally recognized by the palate, in case they es- 
cape the sentry of the nose. Some things attract the appetite. 
Some articles of food or drink appeal more strongly than 
others because the sense of taste so interprets them. 

These are physical powers. 

Sound is merely the action of air-waves on the nerves of 
hearing, which carry some idea to the brain. It may be dis- 
cord, or painful noise like the scratching of a nail on glass; 
or it may be sweet music ; it may be the gentle voice of love, 
or the stern tones of command, or the growl of hatred. It 
all depends on the interpretation given the air-waves to the 
brain by the nerves of hearing. 

Touch and sight are likewise made to wait upon the agents 
of the mind for their recognition. 

If a thought is spoken or written it must find scope in 
words, and these have meaning. They depend on sight or 
sound to carry the words, and the latters are tools of meaning 
which the brain will understand. 

All this is physical interpretation. 

Now if you are in the room with another person and he 
says nothing, although he is thinking hard and rapidly, you 
might give a small fortune if you were able to know what is 
passing through his mind. His thoughts are coming in 
waves into your own brain, but as they enter the subconscious 



DOUBLE LIFE 167 

mind you cannot interpret them, and so they are as dead to 
you as if they had not actually become your property. 

It is a well proved fact that the thoughts of other persons 
are continually entering your brain. 

You think, talk, write and plan in the words which belong 
to your physical existence. But the waves that carry 
thoughts are ether impulses, and the brain that receives them 
is in the subconscious realm. It is like having a fortune in 
a safe which you cannot unlock. You possess the subcon- 
scious mind, and the thoughts of other people are entering 
that mind every minute. But you cannot get them into your 
physical mind, and the latter is all that you can understand. 

LAW. — The physical mind cannot interpret the thoughts 
of the psychic mind. 

The reason why this interpretation cannot be carried on is 
that the two minds operate in two languages. The physical 
mind understands the alphabet, say of twenty-six letters, and 
the words that are composed of that alphabet, say less than 
eight hundred, except in cases of excellent education. No 
people on earth understand those words unless they belong to 
the nation that speaks them or have also learned to use them. 
Even the greatest of languages is a small affair to the sub- 
conscious mind that can talk not only to the people every- 
where in the world, but also to all the peoples in all the uni- 
verse. The English speech is quite insignificant compared 
with so extensive a tongue as the psychic language. 

There is not one word in the latter that is found in the 
English or any other language of earth. It thus appears why 
the physical mind is helpless when it is in possession of the 
thoughts of others. 

We possess those thoughts and we do not know them. 

Yet they are seeking at all times to break through our 
physical minds, and they do break through to a very slight 
extent and stand forth in the language of the latter mind. 
This is then called thought transference or physical telep- 
athy. 



168 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

It is probable that fifty times a day the thoughts of other 
minds actually get some kind of faint interpretation in our 
own, in yours, in everybody's. They are there all the while 
in full power, but simply lack the means of being interpreted 
in the physical brain. If only some system could be invented 
whereby they can be given the language of that mind, then 
thought transference would be a perfect art and would revo- 
lutionize all forms of life on earth. 

How many times, when you are walking with a companion, 
he utters some thought that you were about to speak, and you 
have said : " Why, that is what I was just going to say. 
How strange! Those very words were on my tongue's end 
and you took them out of my mouth. Did you know that I 
was thinking of the very same thing, too? " And all that. 

Case after case has been reported on this power of the 
mind. Men, who have spent years in investigating psychic 
laws, have found the most abundant and reliable evidence on 
this one point, the passage of thoughts in silence between two 
minds. Says a very able scientist and author, who also holds 
a high place as a university professor in England : 

" Of all the evidence received in the past eighteen years, 
that which proves the passing of thoughts from one mind to 
another is the most common and the most convincing." 

Therefore, while the physical mind cannot interpret the 
thoughts of the psychic mind as an open book, the latter is 
seeking all the time to break through into the former and 
does succeed very often ; needing only greater attention in or- 
der to be recognized more frequently; just as the other psy- 
chic powers are breaking through the physical faculties as is 
described in the final chapter of the first division of this 
book. It may be due to accident, or to greater sensitiveness 
of the nerves at times, or to a fixed purpose on the part of 
nature. 

Now comes a remarkable explanation with which we are 
not yet prepared to agree ; but we wish every member of the 
Psychic Society to assist in carrying on the investigation so 



DOUBLE LIFE 169 

that the truth may sooner or later be known. It is true 
that there are two minds, the physical and the psychic. It 
is true that the physical mind has one language and the psy- 
chic another. It is true that the former cannot understand 
the latter, as a general rule. It is true that the latter is 
seeking to break through into the former. All these things 
are known with absolute certainty to be true. 

But the following explanation goes a step beyond what we 
are willing to assert in this stage of our history: 

Inasmuch as the psychic mind is seeking all the time or 
much of the time to break through into the physicial mind, 
and also inasmuch as the language of one differs from the 
language of the other, it must be reasonable to believe that 
what is known as intuition, instinct and inspiration, occurring 
as they do in the periods of normal wakefulness, are the 
knockings or efforts of the psychic mind to convey its infor- 
mation to the ordinary mind. To sustain this reasoning; the 
cases are cited of the strange feelings that attend a fore- 
warning, or a presentiment. 

" I have had a presentiment to-day," says a woman, and 
she tells how vague it is. Another woman says : " I have a 
strange feeling that something is to happen," but she can- 
not interpret it. Another woman seems to hold back from 
entering into some bargain or transaction because she has a 
feeling that it is not all right. It may be true that the 
language of the psychic mind is partly in the feelings, and 
we all know that only the commonest feeling can be put into 
words ; all others being what is called inexpressible. 

Inspiration can tell the human part of man many things 
that will lead him on to wonderful achievements in this 
world. It speaks with a greater degree of certainty than 
either presentiments or intuition. Instinct is merely a blind 
leader, compelling the individual to obey. It is undoubtedly 
a low form of psychic power. 

If inspiration could have full sway, man would be a god. 

It is often made active under the influence of excitement. 



170 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

In a nervous, highly tense and well-balanced religious life, 
inspiration will open up the heavens and such a book as 
Revelation will result. The truth of that writing cannot 
be denied, no matter whether you examine it from the 
standpoint of science, ethics, reasoning or doctrinal theology. 
Revelation, and all the religious part of the Bible can be 
conclusively proved by the facts now known to psychic te- 
lepathy, or by the ordinary laws of advanced science, such as 
is required to convince the hard-headed investigators of to- 
day. Yet this could not be said with equal certainty ten 
years ago. In fact then and for many generations of in- 
vestigation the trend of the reasoning faculties was against 
such a conclusion. 

From all parts of a great country all roads lead to its 
capital. 

From all the fields of study and investigation, all paths 
draw to one focus, — the efforts of the psychic mind to break 
through into the physical thoughts and there find interpreta- 
tion. 

The poet who feels that great ideas and sublime pictures 
are taking form in his soul, knows that some power is at 
work within him. In the case of Poe, of Byron, and of many 
other geniuses whose bodies fell away to give place to their 
psychic tendencies, we see the difficulty of maintaining the 
genius and the plain physical existence. In the catalepsy 
of Napoleon, of Csesar, of Alexander, and of mighty leaders 
of the world in every department and profession,- we see the 
sleep that dulls the conscious mind in order to open up the 
subconscious. In the lesser instances where this power is 
used for impracticable purposes, the same closing out of one 
mind in order to open the other is witnessed with wonder- 
ment. 

Shakespeare must have walked largely in the psychic 
world. 

Of him it is said that he is the only genius that the world 
has ever produced who has not left one written letter, one 



DOUBLE LIFE 171 

authentic message, or one recognizable act, although he lived 
within comparatively recent times. The letters of the great 
men of one and two thousand years ago, are now read ; but 
Shakespeare left not a word. The will that is attributed to 
him was not in his handwriting. He has shut off all sources 
of tracing his identity. This is strange for the man who is 
sung as the " thousand-souled bard." He wrote not for one 
age but for all time. His works and his influence are im- 
mortal. 

The absence of all evidence from personal letters and acts 
is taken to mean that some other man wrote the plays under 
that name. It is argued that, if he actually lived, and was 
the man of Stratford, he would have written at least one 
letter to some friend of whom he must have had many. 
Here reason fails. Shakespeare was a man who dwelt 
largely in the psychic world, and succeeded in drawing from 
its fields the beauty, the eloquence, the splendor and the 
royal magnificence of thought and feeling, putting them into 
the language of the physical mind and embellishing them 
with the garlands of exquisite phrases. He was not of the 
physical world, except in moments of respite. Letters to 
friends could not be the product of the inner mind, and he 
had little time to write anything else. 

But he walked in groves and fields, along vales, by the 
foothills, on the mountain side, in the deep forests, beside 
the running brooks, against the banks of rushing rivers, in 
the calm peace of dells, and through the tempestuous fury of 
storms, alone in his masterwork, knowing the delights of a 
life that is as far from earth as this globe is distant from the 
courts of heaven. Thus many human beings dwell in a 
partly inspired existence. 

On every hand are evidences of the psychic mind seeking 
to push its way through the barrier that closes it out from the 
physical world. It is not necessary to enter into a trance 
state to find it out. On the other hand there is admission 
into the psychic world for every man and woman who un- 



172 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

derstands that this earth is the choosing ground for the fate 
that is to be selected. 

You are the architect of your destiny, the arbiter of your 
own doom. 

LAW. — In the psychic world all thoughts, feelings and 
purposes are an open hook. 

In this physical form of life they are certainly pretty well 
closed. We invent microscopes and feel sure that we will 
not find the indivisible atom ; and behold it ceases to show the 
secrets when it is too powerful a magnifier, because the atom 
is a part of the very light that shines on the plate. We can- 
not use the agency as an aid to discover the thing of which 
the agency is built. On the other hand we make the largest 
telescopes, and say now we will look on the surface of the 
planets and stars and peep into the very homes of the peoples 
that dwell there ; but the most we can see is the coarser out- 
lines of what is revealed by the smaller glasses. 

We hunt in the growing plasm and find the cell to be the 
basis of life, but we cannot get farther than the seat of intel- 
ligence in that cell. We supposed for a long time that the 
four leading elements of the universe, oxygen, nitrogen, hy- 
drogen and carbon, made up the cell from which all animal, 
plant and human bodies were created ; and so we got them 
together in their right proportions and tried to build a being 
from them. But that humble beginning, great as it seemed 
in comparison with the dark that preceded it, was so simple, 
so small, so trifling that it is not even the starting point of 
life itself. 

By dint of straining and struggling and toiling in the 
midnight vigils, we found the id, the home where the brain 
of the cell dwells ; and we thought to expose its nature ; but 
it throbbed on while we sat helpless. The human stomach 
has been placed under a pane of glass during a surgical op- 
eration that saved the life of the patient. While thus open 
to view, the process of digestion has been seen and studied. 
The rough fibrous lining of the organ has been seen to put 



DOUBLE LIFE 173 

out its fingers and tear the food into shreds, thus macerating 
it for assimilation with the blood. But this is a physical 
operation. 

The skull of a man has been laid bare, and the uninjured 
brain has been seen to do its work. The acids and juices 
flow over the surface of the convolutions, and excite them to 
thought. They vibrate and throb and pulsate, while the 
mind takes in and gives out knowledge, plans, schemes and 
takes wide flights in the realm of reason. Now we think the 
secret is learned at last. But the presence of the intelligence 
is not seen. What it is remains a mystery. The soul is well 
nigh a sealed book. What preceded our birth and what fol- 
lows death, is as closely guarded by the sentinels of fate as 
any facts can be; and man searches, delves, theorizes and 
falls to sleep dismayed. 

There is an apparent reason for this secrecy. 

The fallen man is made to rise by his own initiative. 
When he fell he lost his right to communicate with the be- 
ings that were left behind in the heavens. He will not know 
them again until he works out his new destiny. The curtain 
is drawn over his vision and a barrier is lifted between his 
physical consciousness and his psychic mind. He is given 
both in order that he may have hope ; for, if he were only a 
conscious organism his fate would be sealed when the grave 
closed over him. His destiny is therefore linked with the 
hope that reposes in his psychic mind. 

This plan will probably continue as long as he has any des- 
tiny yet unsolved. 

On the contrary the psychic world is an open book. 

Its thoughts are known to all its inhabitants; and they 
live on earth as well as elsewhere. Its mind is like a glass 
case enveloping a mass of intricate machinery, every move- 
ment of which is seen by the eye. The child beholds the 
hands of the watch move and record the passing of time. 
He wonders what makes them move, and no one opens the 
case to show him. So to him it is a mysterious proceeding. 



174 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

At length the watchmaker sets the works in glass and all is 
visible. People of the psychic world live in glass houses. 
Their minds are open and known. Their thoughts are all as 
visible as if they were written. Their motives, plans, pur- 
poses and schemes are like the bulwarks of a city; plain to 
all who care to look upon them and read what they import. 

LAW. — The psychic mind knows all the thoughts of the 
physical mind. 

The knowledge referred to is a two-edged sword ; it works 
both ways. The physical consciousness does not know what 
is in the psychic mind unless the thoughts of the latter oc- 
casionally break through the barrier as is the case in telep- 
athy, intuition, instinct, inspiration, presentiments, premoni- 
tions and other manifestations of the same class. 

What is going on in your physical mind, which is the seat 
of ordinary intelligence, is fully known to your psychic 
mind ; but the reverse is not true. What is going on in the 
brain of every human being is known to your psychic mind ; 
but, as you have no interpreter to translate one into the 
other, your ordinary intelligence is not aware of the oper- 
ations, and so, like the waves of the ocean, they beat out 
their vibrations on the shores of an unresponsive realm. 

The many laws and facts set forth in this chapter open 
now the way to the building of deeper and grander structures 
in the plan of this work. 

At no stage of the progress of our study has any matter 
been left to doubt or theory. The proofs have been con- 
clusive and there is no opportunity to challenge any law or 
statement. More than this, they are all in harmony with the 
prevailing opinions and beliefs of every intelligent people on 
the globe. They fit in every doctrine that is basic. They 
conform to the inspiration of the great writers in all the 
centuries. They afford a complete explanation to the prob- 
lems that have puzzled the mind of scholar, sage or theo- 
logian. The more they are considered the more clear they 
become. 




175 



CHAPTER XXIX. 
MEANING OF BIRTH. 



HAT IS THE PURPOSE of being born in 
the physical body will now claim our attention 
for a chapter. We must start with a review 
of the preceding chapters in the socond division 
of this book. This can be done by the reader 
without iteration here, as it would merely fill 
pages for nothing. The first great fact to be 
recalled is that the earth is surrounded by a fund of demon 
life. There are bad demons and neutral demons. There 
are no good demons; for, if they were good, they would have 
worked out their destiny and have passed beyond control of 
the leash of earth. 

A parent who brings into the world a child after such 
parent has been freed from demon control, places in the life 
of that child a neutral demon ; it will itself be free if it dies 
before it falls into the ways of the. evil demons. 

So on the same principle every human being that does not 
fall into evil influence, will be freed. 

But these are speculations, and our work is with facts. 
The demon life that surrounds the earth is awaiting op- 
portunity to be born into a physical body so that it may be 
given the right to seek to free itself. In order that there 
may be such a chance, the earth has been formed of soil and 
protoplasm given to that soil out of which a living organism 
might take shape and grow. A fund of mind has also been 
thrown around the world, as well as a fund of vitality, of 
electricity and other powers, suited to the needs of a life tak- 
ing on earth as its garment. 



176 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

From the lap of earth we are all sprung. Ashes to ashes 
is the fate of that body. There is not a particle of the 
physical organism that is not earth, earthy. Whatever 
is physical we can see with the eye or the microscope. The 
purpose of it all is to afford the soul of the demon the cloth- 
ing of flesh with, which he can grow and have his opportunity. 
How many times it is given to him, is immaterial. It is at 
least his once. He fell from a better estate. Of this there 
is no doubt, and few doubters living or that have ever lived. 
Having fallen, he comes to earth, the dumping ground of 
the universe, the hell of all creation, and here awaits the 
chance to take on the robe of flesh. This means that he 
must be born, and it is the meaning of being born. 

Certain laws are made to give him birth and progress. 
The starting point is the cell. It is guarded and protected. 
He is cared for by nature and instinct until he is able to 
look after himself; then he is let go, and the rest of the affair 
is in his hands. He can do with himself as he pleases, and 
can also do pretty much as he pleases with the rest of man- 
kind, for he is living in hell in this world, and demon life 
predominates. 

LAW. — The fund of life out of which a person is born 
is general. 

It is not a fact that the identity of the soul is main- 
tained after the fall and the casting out of heaven. If you 
are born you come from a general fund of demon life. You 
have not, as an individual, been alive before on earth; but 
the fund out of which you are produced has many times sent 
into a body of flesh the life essence that you possess. There 
could be no other method. 

A family of fourteen persons were buried on a farm in a 
private plot. One alone survived. He married, had ten 
children by two wives, and they all lived. By some mistake 
following the ravages of war, the original fourteen graves 
were torn up, the bodies were mingled with the soil, even the 
bones decaying to a great extent, and the family of two 



MEANING OF BIRTH 177 

parents and ten children ate the vegetables, the grain and 
fruits that grew from this land. There is not the slightest 
doubt, that every one of the original fourteen members of the 
family were food in changed form, and in some portions, 
particle for particle, for the bodies of the others who fol- 
lowed. 

An army of two hundred thousand soldiers fell on the 
soil of Russia following the invasion by Napoleon. They 
were not given burial. For the most part they merely en- 
riched the soil from which great crops were raised and the 
food taken for others to eat. One million Persians fell in the 
olden time, occupying a rather narrow compass of ground, 
which was fertilized by their bodies. Their own identical 
flesh passed into other bodies. 

But this is the story of change, or death, of birth, and of 
the process of the ages. It is well understood by all thought- 
ful persons and needs no sustaining data. 

Not so well understood, but equally as well proved, is the 
fact that the fund of soul life that enters into the born hu- 
man being, comes from a general fund of soul life, called de- 
mon life, that is as abundant as the earth in which it must 
take form and develop. 

The earth is a physical fund. Flesh is earth and nothing 
else. It is taken from the soil, and returns to the fund 
from which it is derived. Blood is earth likewise. It is 
coming and going every day in the building up and the break- 
down of the body. 

There is a fund of electricity that surrounds the earth. 
If some of it is caught and stored it goes back to its fund 
as soon as it is released. 

There is a fund of vitality that attends all kinds of life, 
from which supplies are drawn as needed. When cattle are 
killed this vitality is a marked force, and many sickly per- 
sons have been restored to good health by staying near by to 
receive some of the vitality that otherwise would all pass 
into its . fund ; for it is easier for an invalid to take some of 
12 



178 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

the passing energy that the cattle give up, than to fight for 
it against the human race after such vitality has been scat- 
tered. It is easier to secure gold that lies in heaps extracted 
from the ground, than it is to dig and wash and pick out the 
scattered particles. 

So many tests and measurements have been made of the 
passing vitality from dying cattle that no person familiar with 
the facts doubts the existence of a general fund of vitality, 
out of which comes what each person can assimilate, and to 
which all that die must yield what they have. 

Likewise the fund of life out of which a person is born is 
general. For a long time we thought that the fund of vital- 
ity might be proved to be the only kind of life that dwelt in 
the body. It seemed also as though the energy that passed 
from the body at death was the only life within it. But v 
escaping vitality is now thoroughly and conclusively proved 
to be evanescent, flying quickly into its general fund, and 
is closely akin to electricity, which in the same manner flies 
to its fund. But the soul is a complete and imperishable be- 
ing that makes its existence clearly manifest, and about the 
separate entity of which at this date there cannot be enter- 
tained the shadow of a doubt. 

LAW. — The fund of life consists of every kind of de- 
mon nature. 

When the lost beings fell out of heaven, they were con- 
signed to this planet as a special abode. They arrived here 
at a time when the earth was ripe to receive them. Before 
that time there was no existence of any kind whatever here. 
Not even a tree or blade of grass existed. The fallen beings 
entered into a general fund which adopted as its basis the 
protoplasmic cell. From this cell all human beings are 
created. From the same cell all animal life takes its start. 
From the same cell all vegetable life has its origin. 

Before man can exist, there must be animal life to precede 
him, and before animal life can exist, there must be vegetable 
life to precede it. One eats the other. The animal eats the 



MEANING OF BIRTH 179 

plant structure, and man eats the animal as well as the plant 
structure. The cell of protoplasm that finds its way into 
the blade of grass, passes thence into the steer, and its flesh 
enters the body of man. It comes out as effete matter, no 
longer protoplasm, for it has carried the intelligence of its 
nucleus into the organism of man, and is now dissolved into 
its elements. Thus life proceeds. 

The protoplasmic cell is therefore the basis of all forms 
of life, the goal of which is the human body. No higher 
being ever has lived on earth, and there is not the slightest 
indication that it will. 

We find this demon fund excessively abundant in the 
early history of the globe. Animals and vegetation were of 
gigantic proportions. 

As humanity became more abundant the fund was required 
to supply its life; and as there is a general freedom from the 
leash of this world, the fund will grow still smaller. 

If all the animals and all the vegetation of a hundred 
thousand years ago were to be taken account-of-stock of, we 
would find that, as compared with all the life of every kind 
now existing here, there had been a decided decrease. Some 
of the fund of life has left the earth, never to return. It has 
been freed. 

Each soul, although mingled in the general fund, awaits 
its turn to be born, so that it may have the opportunity to 
take up the story of its final fate. No more human beings 
can come into birth than there are parents to produce them. 
Each mated pair may bring one or two, or more children 
into being. If every mated pair on earth were to become 
parents as often as possible, it is likely that the whole fund 
of demon life would soon be exhausted, and the earth would 
be peopled with billions who are seeking to throw off the 
bondage of this hell. , 

But the channels of parentage are now fixed. Nature 
will not permit it to cease, but does not hurry or crowd it. 
Writers who have been engaged in experiments on growing 



180 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

vegetation tell the public that some of the elements needed 
to maintain growth are being rapidly and mysteriously re- 
duced, and will soon be exhausted. This would mean that 
vegetation would in time cease, and the channels of further 
parentage and growth would be limited accordingly unless 
some other means of supplying the body are found. 

The first condition of the fund of life was terribly demo- 
niac. 

Every kind of animal that came into being was a monstros- 
ity, and there were few small insects. As man increased and 
used more of the fund, the animals became of small size, 
and the insects much smaller. Since the progress has con- 
tinued, the animals have become less ferocious, even the wild 
beasts and the reptiles and vermin are not as savage. Their 
numbers have become less year by year. Smallness prevails. 
Every nation and every people tells of the early history of 
their race when their men and women were giants. Fossil 
remains indicate that there were giants in all the species, in- 
cluding man. Trees and leaves and plants were gigantic, as 
is easily proved by geology. 

Almost every year of the present era some new kind of 
small insect is discovered. Pests are being fought now when 
a generation ago they were not known at all. Smallness is 
the sign of the times. It means that the fund of life that 
surrounds the world is being used more and more for the 
building of the bodies of human beings, and less and less for 
the animals. Indeed ninety-eight per cent, of the latter have 
been exterminated. 

When we compare the vitality of a hundred thousand 
years ago with that now prevailing, including all that 
lives in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, we are quickly 
impressed with the fact that it is being exhausted. Learned 
men say it is due to the weakening of the earth which is 
getting old, and will some day be played out, and be- 
come a dead orb floating in the sky. This is not true. 

Nothing is wasted in the universe. 



MEANING OF BIRTH 181 

The life that is lessening on this globe is passing out into 
the other worlds. Of this there are many forms of proof. 

Birth is only a process whereby a soul from the fund 
of life may be clothed with earth and grow to a being 
capable of determining its own fate. 

As a body of flesh comes from the ground and is made 
up of the soil into which other bodies of flesh have entered 
and become mingled in the general fund, so the entity of 
the soul has come out of a general fund. If it were 
otherwise, the same being would live over and over again. 
As it is there is some part of a former being in the new 
born body, but it is not re-incarnation. It is merely a 
new mold from old material. The mind, as Victor Hugo 
says with so much force, seems to have been born over 
and over again and retains but faintly its recollection of 
its old time bodies. But that is speculation and need not 
be discussed. 

There are cases where a pre-natal recollection has been 
followed into some proof of a previous existence for the 
same individual on this earth. They are not conclusive 
proof of the fact however. Many such instances have been 
the subject of investigation by our Society, and some are 
still pending. We wish every person who becomes a mem- 
ber of the Psychic Society to aid us when there is a 
possibility of further proof being obtained ; for some have 
made a positive claim that there is important evi- 
dence waiting to be investigated. As the matter now 
stands it would be unwise to make any assertion in posi- 
tive terms for or against the theory that the same be- 
ing has lived before as an identical individual. If our 
members are active and can bring to our attention any 
genuine evidence, or can assist us in pursuing the matter 
we may be able to secure proofs that will be convincing. 
At the present time we do not believe that the same 
person has lived before as a separate identity. 

Two recent cases have been reported on out of over 



182 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

forty altogether; and they are but stepping stones toward 
the conclusion that at first seems warranted. 

In one case a very young woman was travelling in 
England. As she came near a very old house, she sud- 
denly said : " I once lived here." Then she described 
many localities, and gave the history of the times when she 
was there, as she claimed. She was in fact born in 
America and it was conclusively proved that this was her 
first crossing of the ocean. Only Americans were with 
her, and she reached the locality in question less than 
twenty-four hours after she landed in England. She had 
not talked with any persons who could have offered any 
information of the history of the place. 

As she described the scenes of her childhood, an old 
man who stood by listening, suddenly exclaimed : " I was 
a lad at the time you were here. But it was your mother. 
You are the image of her. The old stone house that you 
say stood there at the brook, was torn down well nigh 
onto fifty years ago. I helped to destroy it." Incident 
after incident was stated, old inhabitants were invited to 
the scene and they confirmed the story. Some of them 
remembered a young girl just like the one talking. Some 
members of a society heard of the strange account and 
pursued the matter privately; and to their surprise they found 
that this girl's mother and grandmother had in fact lived 
there; the former having crossed the ocean before the young 
woman was born. 

Of the present case there can be no doubt as to the 
reliability of the testimony. But what kind of a con- 
clusion shall be drawn? One swallow does not make a 
summer. One case cannot set up a new law. There is 
another case like it occurring in Germany, that is fully 
sustained as to reliability of account, and freedom from 
connivance with others. . Thus these two cases make a 
stepping stone toward a line of proof. But the field is 
too new for further discussion. If the facts related by 



MEANING OF BIRTH 183 

the young woman who found the playgrounds of a child- 
hood are true, and they are so admitted by the severest 
investigators, then it seems that somehow this woman had 
knowledge of a prior existence that occurred fifty years 
before the time she visited the locality. It is possible that 
she inherited a memory of those days from her grandmother. 
The old man said it was her mother who played there. 
But the ages of the women, as afterwards investigated, 
showed that it must have been her grandmother. So she 
either inherited the memory from two generations back, 
or else she actually lived there herself two generations be- 
fore. 

If the latter supposition were true, she must have lain 
insensible for the intervening generation, or was living in 
some other human body. We do not believe that either 
conculsion is the correct solution. 

We do not know. 

It is said by many persons that there have been 
thousands of such cases in the various part of the civilized 
world which have never been investigated. There are 
numerous other problems that call for attention. These 
matters accumulate so fast that a large membership is 
needed in the Psychic Society in order to help push the 
investigation to successful results. 

No line of study is as important. 

In fact you can put together all the learning in the 
world, all the books that have been written, all the work 
of college and university, and you will find nothing that 
will compare in importance with the facts that are now 
being sought by societies such as this. 

It is the highest form of education. 

A duty rests on each individual to assist in arousing a 
wide spread interest in the study. Let us help in every 
way to reach a line of conclusions that will be so strongly 
founded in fact as to defy all doubt. On themes like 
these the mind longs for the truth, and the whole truth. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

PARENTAGE. 1 

I 1 




S HAS BEEN STATED in a preceding 
chapter parentage is a channel only by which 
demon life may become connected with the 
body of earth and thus begin existence. This 
channel may delay for a long time the freeing 
of the soul from the leash of earth. At the 
beginning of human existence here, all life 
was of the demon class, pure and straight, without a 
redeeming ray of light. We see the pages of geology lying 
open before us, and they bear on their faces records that 
cannot be misinterpreted. 

Could we stand now in the presence of the first humanity 
of one hundred thousand years ago, we would see a mass 
of people of every sort, all savage, all cruel, all with tusks 
in their mouths and claws in their hands, all tearing the 
flesh of wild animals and birds, all disposed to quarrel, to 
fight, to kill, to torture, to enter into barbaric rites, and 
make their dwelling place on earth a hideous hell. This 
was the first born of the planet. The evidence is ample, 
in fact more than ample. The time when they lived is 
known by the place their remains now occupy; or where 
their fossils, as geology states, are found with reference to 
the accumulation of the debris of the many centuries that 
have passed. 

Skulls, forms of their bodies stamped in the strata where 
they died, the implements they used, all tell a story that 
cannot be disputed. 

Here was the first born of earth. 



PARENTAGE 185 

Not the creation of a loving God, for the Maker of 
the universe never conceived such forms, such natures, 
such devils. Only good can spring from that fountain 
head ; and there was nothing good in the first born of 
earth. It took nearly a hundred thousand years before 
the good began to break through the demon life that 
occupied all the globe; but the good was there and it 
was destined to come to light. 

It is growing all the time. 

Here is unmistakable evidence of the fact that the 
humanity that came to earth were doomed to this place 
as a hell ; that the planet is the dumping ground of the 
whole sky; and that these beings, having undertaken to 
rebel against the government of heaven as has been so 
well set forth by the inspired Milton, were cast out and 
left to w T ork out their own destiny here. They were devils, 
but they were immortal. 

We see the kind of spirits that left the sky to suffer 
their isolation here. They are exiles. 

To have lived on this orb at any time except the last 
hundred years or so, means to have been in the midst 
of demons without hope of being extricated. To have 
lived six thousand years ago, means to have been in the 
midst of savages where nothing but cruelty and torture 
were possible in the treatment of one another. The light 
had not begun to break. To have lived here fifty thousand 
years ago, means to have dwelt in the very bosom of a mass 
of hideous life such as the fever of delirium now brings be- 
fore the gaze of the demented or inflamed brain. 

Improvement has been going on all along the ages. 

But the demons are still abundant. They are less fre- 
quent in the forms of beasts and humanity than ever be- 
fore, but the air and all the earth teems with them. They 
await their turn and time to be born. As far as the dis- 
position of the demon is concerned, it is still in the vast 
majority all over the globe. It is in the child, in the 



186 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

man and in the woman. Not in all, for the sweeter 
impulses are also at work, and the light is breaking. 

If there is any person who doubts the assertion that 
demon spirits are everywhere present about the earth, let 
him subscribe for one year to a daily newspaper that is 
published in each of the great cities of the United States. 
Then let him secure a set of books, say a dozen in all, 
containing each about one thousand pages, and divide them 
so that they will be indexed from the first to the last. 

Let him enter in alphabetical order under the proper 
letters in the various books, the names of all those who 
commit crimes of a fiendish nature, or who show a wanton 
disregard of the rights and feelings of others, showing 
the demon character. He will need a secretary and many 
assistants. In making the record the name should be 
entered carefully so as to avoid doubling the same act. 
Against the name let the crime be written. Everything 
that is diabolical is to go in these books. He will average 
from one to three thousand crimes of such nature each and 
every day in the year if he takes papers enough to cover 
the whole scope of the country. He may find from half 
a million to a million diabolical acts during the year. 

These will disclose only the offenses that happen to 
come to light. What is he to do about the millions of 
men and women who are criminal in the darkness of their 
private lives? What about the secret murders, rapes, 
adultery, fornication, thefts, graft, corruption, cheating, 
and countless wrongs that denote the blackened heart? 
These will not appear in the papers. 

But he will sicken as he cons what he does find published. 
He will no longer apologize for the imperfections of his 
fellow beings, but will know in unmistakable terms that 
a demon life is everywhere abundant. 

Attorney General Bonaparte in a recent speech declared 
that the effect of abolishing capital punishment for murder 
was rapidly increasing that crime. This is true. The 



PARENTAGE 187 

records show it. A man that is to be housed and fed all 
his life, is less deterred from hasty or premeditated killing 
than one who knows to a certainty that his own life will 
pay the penalty. The Attorney General also declared that 
when a man has been convicted of an attempt to kill 
another by any means he should suffer death. This is 
right in principle. He further said with a truth almost 
inspired that when a criminal had been several times con- 
victed of any serious crime he should be put to death. The 
reason he gave was also sound in logic and in truth. It 
is this : In the last century there was a much smaller propor- 
tion of criminals in England than there are now ; and there 
are now many less there than there are to-day in the United 
States. This is due to the fact that confirmed criminals 
were executed and prevented from parentage, no matter 
what the nature of their crimes. 

This is right in principle. 

In this country no criminals are executed except for 
murder or rape, and very few for either. It is said by 
police authorities that one murderer in every nineteen is 
executed ; and one rapist in every two thousand. Here 
we find the reason for the rapid increase of crime. 

The principle involved in this fact is seen in the re- 
lation of such parentage to the increase of crime. 

LAW. — Life drawn from the universal fund through 
criminals should be kept from parentage. 

Of course the inhabitants of earth are left to settle this 
question as best may suit them. They alone bear the bur- 
den of responsibility. They are given freedom of choice. 
They had freedom of choice in their first heritage in the 
sky. They rebelled and fell. They are now having free- 
dom of choice in the management of their fate on earth. 
This kind of liberty is seen in the character of the twelve 
disciples. Christ knew what each man was, and the nature 
of each mind and heart. He knew that His followers were 
free to act as they chose; and when He was betrayed it 



188 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

was the happening of evil in the midst of good. So " fell 
the angels," as Shakespeare says. 

A criminal is a man or woman whose natural bent is 
to commit offenses against the law. As a rule the con- 
firmed criminal is not capable of being reformed. He may 
be improved, but rarely made an honest man. His brain 
bears the shape of the felon. His blood is tainted. He 
has come from the fund of demon life, and back to it 
he will go when he dies. He came on earth through 
criminal parentage, or else has been brought under the sway 
of the unseen demons that rule his life. There is no hope 
for him except through the button-molder, who will melt 
him in the crucible and recast him. But his identity is 
lost. He goes back to the fund of demon life, and comes 
out again in a new being, but not necessarily a better one. 

In the city of New York there are three hundred 
thousand confirmed criminals. In Philadelphia there are 
more than one hundred thousand. In Boston there are 
seventy-five thousand. In Chicago there are two hundred 
and fifty thousand. In each city there is a very large 
proportion. They slink away to their homes for sleep 
and rest; but are plying their trade of crime whenever 
they dare do so. They fear punishment only as they 
dislike to be deprived of their freedom to commit felony. 
They are not capable of being reformed. Not one in 
a hundred thousand can be made better; and they bring 
to ruin many others by contact with them. They do 
some work, but are not a help to the nation, but become 
a burden on society. It would be much better for them 
if they had never been born. They have gained nothing 
by coming into the world, and society has lost much. 

The logical thing to do is to follow the advice of 
Attorney General Bonaparte, and execute those who are 
continual offenders. But the law-makers will not consent to 
that. These criminals have votes. The next best thing to 
do is to segregate them, putting them where they cannot breed 



PARENTAGE 189 

and must live and die by themselves, just as we separate 
the cat from the canary before it is too late. But the 
law-makers will not consent to that, for these criminals 
have votes. 

Every criminal who has become a parent brings into the 
world offspring that cannot escape the doom of the criminal 
heritage. From the accursed demon fund they come, and 
back to it they will go. The best thing for the coming 
generations is to cut off all possibilities of such parentage. 
But as the dangers are ahead and will not be lessened in 
this era, the present generation is too selfish to take such 
steps. They are indifferent to the fate that awaits their 
children. 

Man has been given the reins of his own government 
and the control of the life-making power. He can train 
any animal breeder into better or worse offspring. In his 
hands alone the cattle, horses, dogs and other beasts have 
been wonderfully improved. Nature waited till he came 
before she undertook the work of making better life. The 
same is true of flowers, fruits and grains. Once there was 
but one kind of wheat; now there are several kinds. Once 
there was but one variety of apple ; now there are nearly 
two hundred varieties. Once there was but one variety 
of grape, and now there are nearly one hundred. Once 
the pink w r as wild and single; now man has made it 
double and cultured, bringing out of the one kind of a few 
generations ago, a marvelous group of exquisitely beautiful 
flowers. Man has improved all forms of life he has taken 
an interest in as producers of money or profit. But he 
has allowed his own race to grow more and more depraved. 
The high moral status of forty years ago is displayed by 
a burlesque of ethics and an array of silly ideas with which 
he kills time if he can afford it; and when he slaves for 
a living he robs himself of all hope of betterment by his 
misuse of the privileges of life. 

To the serious phases of earthly existence he is learning 



igo THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

to pay no attention. Not long ago he was impressed by 
the death of his loved ones; now he defies all thoughts 
and feelings that should turn his mind toward the sublime 
heights of existence; and if the penalties are too burdensome 
he takes his own life. Suicide is so common now that 
it ceases to shock the public mind. It is looked for 
as one of the usual means of exit from a world that has 
been filled with failures and disappointments. 

In such a mood as this the present generation will pass 
back for the most part into the demon fund from which 
they sprung. When on the other hand there shall be a 
general awakening, the people will cut off all criminal 
parentage either by execution or segregation of the criminals 
that are confirmed in their degradation, and will thus make 
it difficult for the demon to come into this world through 
birth. 

LAW. — All persons that are born of honest parentage 
transform demons into human beings for whom there is 
hope. 

There is no hope for the offspring of criminal parents. 

The experts who have studied them have come to the 
agreement that they will remain criminals and so die in 
their boots. 

The hope of rapidly reducing the demon life that sur- 
rounds earth and that comes into being here, rests in the 
method that causes them to be born of honest parentage. 
That is the starting point. It is not all that is necessary. 
But it is a beginning. If they are born of criminal 
parentage, there is then no starting point. 

This law may be as easily applied to the human species 
as to horses, cows, sheep, dogs and other forms of life; 
or to roses, carnations, pears, apples, grapes or grains. The 
betterment takes place through the manner of breeding or 
propagation. Man has never once in all the history of the 
world applied it to his own race. Nature applied it when 
man was being brought upward toward civilization; for 



PARENTAGE 191 

she created the law of the survival of the fittest. Now 
man is reversing that law, and is permitting the unfittest 
to survive. 

At this time in his history when the nitrogen that sup- 
ports the growth of the vegetable kingdom is becoming ex- 
hausted, when animal existence is lessening all over the globe, 
when the mammoth forms of creation of the once great 
past are coming down to the ranks of insects and micro- 
scopic germs, when the time for the renewal of life is 
being perceptibly shortened, man should have a care lest 
the last round of his recall to earth shall have been spent 
and his future become the blackness of an unending demon 
existence. 

It may be that the spirit that set in motion the rebellion 
in the sky of which Milton wrote, is being concentrated 
in the demons that remain or soon will remain, and they 
will be finally sentenced to eternal death, removing forever 
all portent of further anarchy in heaven. 




192 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

1 GETTING FREE. 

g g> 

EAVING THE darker phases of this study 
we come now to the uplands from which we 
can behold a better country. We still must 
deal only with facts, despite the tendency to 
discuss the probabilities and possibilities that 
open before us as the theme grows greater. It 
is undoubtedly a fact that the beings that are 
born on earth are descended from those that fell from 
heaven. The fund from which they are drawn into the 
process of birth is still a large one although it has been 
materially reduced as the centuries have rolled on. 

LAW. — Every life that dies in earth passes into the fund 
of demon existence. 

To die in earth is to remain earth-bound by failing to 
gain the freedom of the universe. All persons die either 
in earth or in the psychic world. 

LAW. — Re-born lives are not identical tvith those that 
died in earth. 

If there is any exception to this law it may be classed 
with the cases referred to in a preceding chapter. A re- 
born body is one that comes into life containing the material 
that has previously lived on earth. As there have been 
countless billions of beings on this orb, and as their bodies 
would fully consume all the soil on the habitable portion 
of the globe, it is not possible for any person to be born 
now who does not take the very material into his body 
that has been used more than once for making the bodies 
of other beings that have lived before. Therefore every 



GETTING FREE 193 

body is re-born, but there is not a continuing of the same 
identity. 

There is no person of intelligence who doubts the fact 
that all the soil now on earth has been used one or more 
times in the making of bodies that have lived. This being 
true, no one can deny that the bodies are re-born. But 
they do not preserve identity. 

As the soil is a general fund to which all beings in earth 
return, so the fund of demon life is general, and to it every 
person who dies in earth must of necessity return. There 
can be no other method of carrying on the process of the 
generations. 

LAW. — A peison dies in earth who is not freed from 
demon life during the period of natural existence in the 
flesh. 

To die in earth is to be resolved back to the funds from 
which the life was drawn; it is to go back to the ashes 
of the earth, to go back to the vital storehouse, to go back 
to the fund of demons, to go back to that bourne from 
which the whole being came. Or, as Tennyson wrote: 

" When that which drew from out the boundless deep, 
turns again home." 

To die in earth is to be earth-bound. 

Law. — There are two kinds of death : the physical and 
the psychic. 

The physical death is that which sends the being back 
to the fund of demons from which it was drawn at birth. 

The psychic death is that which sets the being free from 
earth and gives him the power to return to heaven from 
which he fell. He will be extricated from all demon in- 
fluence, and the spirit of rebellion will be condensed into a 
comparatively few whose lives will be eternally doomed. 

As that spirit was born millions of years ago, its being 

crushed here will prevent its ever becoming manifest again 

in heaven. It is likened to the black sheep in the fold. 

It is the Judas in the twelve disciples. When Christ in- 

13 



194 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

troduced that proportion of evil into the best men that were 
at His command in His own life, it was the clear intention 
to hold up the necessary presence of fallen man as a part 
of the economy of the universe. There can be no other 
meaning in the incident. It was as possible to select twelve 
good men as eleven. Not that the proportion is one in 
twelve. Proportions count nothing. It is the principle. 

Even heaven was not always perfect. 

All forms of life on earth are being contracted or reduced, 
and the supporting powers are likewise becoming less. This 
is apparent even within the observation of the men of to- 
day. When nature moves so slowly that any one generation 
can measure off its degree of activity it is certainly coming 
close to a stop. In order to save repetition and review, 
the reader should peruse again the laws and statements made 
in the present division of this book. They show con- 
clusively in what ways life is being contracted. 

But before the final curtain is rung down, millions upon 
millions will have been freed from the dominant influence 
of the demons that surround the earth. 

Death that goes back to earth with body, soul, mind 
and vitality, will not free any man. 

The psychic death alone can do that. 

LAW. — The immortal being does not die. 

It may not be an easy matter to harmonize the fact that 
eternal life is the attribute of any created being, while death 
is the doom of all who live on earth. There are therefore 
three attributes : 

1. Immortality. 

2. The fall. 

3. Death. 

A created being lives forever. He may fall. Having 
fallen he then enters a fund of demon life where he be- 
longs. Earth is his place of exile until he either enters his 
eternal doom or is restored again to immortality. 

In order to give him his opportunity he is placed on 



GETTING FREE 195 

earth, but must come here in the demon or spirit life, as 
there is no other means of transit through the sky. 

LAW. — Matter dissolves, but life lives forever. 

The earth is made of rock which has been washed by rains 
and water into sand and from this there has been produced 
the loam by which the germ of life may find its beginning 
in the cell of protoplasm and thus clothe the spirit with 
a material body. 

LAW. — Death is necessary in order to free the soul and 
to give it opportunity to seek immortality. 

Death is also necessary in order to afford to each life 
in turn the chance to take on the material body. If there 
were no death on earth there would be no turn awaiting 
others. Death is change. The essential part of life does 
not die. 

The germ begins its existence, grows, takes on maturity, 
exercises its right to choose for itself, is hemmed in by all 
the evil influences from which it is sprung, and is attended 
by opportunities to free itself at every stage of life. 

When the period of a fair trial has ended, the body ripens, 
the earth from which it came gets ready to dissolve, the 
mind grows tired and the organism of clay is laid down 
into the lap of earth again; ashes to ashes, dust to dust. 

The electricity that sustains the nervous system goes to its 
general fund, the vitality flies to its source, the mind again 
seeks resting place in the mass of intelligence that pervades 
all matter, and the soul is once more sent back to the demon 
fund unless it has worked out its right to pass on to other 
worlds. 

LAW. — Every person who enters the psychic world while 
on earth becomes immortal. 

As has been stated there are two worlds, one physical 
and the other psychic. 

Also as has been stated there are two minds, one physical 
and one psychic. 

In addition to this there are two deaths, one physical and 



i 9 6 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

one psychic. We refer to the latter as a death, on the 
principle that death is merely a change from one state to 
another. When a person dies in earth, the change is 
complete back to earth and to all the funds from which 
life was drawn. 

LAW. — The psychic life begins on earth. 

By this is meant that it has its origin here for those who 
are here. The word psychic is used with reference only 
to the conditions that are found on this planet. A larger 
word would be required to describe the conditions out of 
which man was first created, and from which he fell, and 
which are now and ever w T ill be maintained in the other 
worlds of the sky. 

As there are two kinds of mind, and two worlds, one for 
each ; as there are two kinds of death, so there are two 
kinds of life. It has been shown that the physical existence 
is made of earth, that the five senses which are its agents 
are made of earth, and that there the psychic life is trying 
to break through the wall that separates the one existence 
from the other. Look once more at the final chapter in the 
first division of this book, telling in what way the powers 
of the psychic world are ever trying to find their way into 
the intelligence of the physical mind so that they may be 
recognized and understood. All the eleven chapters of that 
division lay the foundation for this one great fact. Take 
up the thread of human experience and note the thousands 
of ways in which the psychic life is seeking to help humanity; 
by the devious methods of inspiration, of intuition, of pre- 
monitions, of grand thoughts that are inexpressible in words, 
by common warnings and presentiments, and by the actual 
presence at times of the psychic body before it takes its 
long flight upward. These efforts cannot be doubted. 
They are a part of the day history of life in the flesh. 

A man once came to the author and said that he had ac- 
quired wealth enough to keep him as long as he lived. Ke 
was not satisfied to live well in a physical sense, but was 



GETTING FREE 197 

eager to test some of the psychic laws to their utmost. The 
subject of inspiration was most interesting to him, for he 
believed that through that power he could touch the edge 
of the life to come. 

He took up the very simple process of writing down all 
ideas of value as they came to him, and afterwards referring 
to them in order to constantly excite the function that pro- 
duced them. In a year he found that thoughts entered 
his mind with great rapidity and that the value increased 
day by day, although almost imperceptibly. His next step 
was to select only the grandest of the new ideas, and en- 
courage his mind to give birth to them. 

But he wrote them down in the instant. 

Let this one provision be omitted, and the process ceases. 

The nervous system in the act of writing employs the 
sense of touch, and conforms to the sense of sight, aiding 
thus the operation of the thought itself. Little as this help 
may be, it is just great enough to make or mar the whole 
plan. 

It is absolutely necessary to adopt this plan of writing, 
of seeing, of reviewing from time to time, and of stimulat- 
ing the mind by keeping an exact transcription of the ideas. 
Then they must be instantly written down. To wait a 
minute may lose one word in the idea, and thus weaken 
the whole. Tennyson stated to a friend that he lost the 
arrangement of four of the simplest words of a poem, 
having delayed writing them down in connection with a 
couplet which formed a part of the poem, and he never 
got them as they came to him; the result being that he 
never published the poem. It is said of Shakespeare that 
not one word can be taken from his writings and replaced 
by another and leave the work as good as he made it. This 
is a wonderful tribute to his genius and inspiration. 

The case which we were relating progressed a year or 
more further, and the man found that he was gaining not 
only in new ideas of great value, but was reaching the 



198 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

goal which he sought. Having made so much headway 
he became interested in the study of psychic telepathy, and 
found the light that was so much desired. 

Victory crowned his efforts. 

This and thousands upon thousands of other proofs show 
conclusively that the psychic life begins on earth. It does 
not have its origin in the sky. It is the other part of man 
in this world. Everywhere we find evidence of his double 
nature. One seeks to help him when he is in need if he is 
worthy of that aid. 

In a recent case that has been called to our attention it 
seems that Dr. Henry van Dyke of the faculty of a leading 
university wrote a book which, owing to its exquisite beauty 
has been translated into German, French, Spanish, Italian, 
Turkish and other languages. In the second edition he 
prints an additional preface, a portion of which is given 
here word for word. The public press comments on the 
preface as though it indicated a claim of sacred inspiration ; 
but this is not apparent. 

Dr. van Dyke writes that he has been asked to tell where 
the story came from. This is his answer : — 

" I do not know where it came from — out of the air, 
perhaps. One thing is certain, it is not written in any 
other book, nor is it to be found among the ancient lore of 
the East. And yet I have never felt as if it were my own. 
It was a gift. It was sent to me; and it has seemed as if 
I knew the Giver, though His name was not spoken. 

" The year had been full of sickness and sorrow. Every 
day brought trouble. Every night was tormented with pain. 
They are very long — those nights when one lies awake and 
hears the laboring heart pumping wearily at its task. 

" Well, it was in one of these long, lonely nights that this 
story came to me. Of the man I had never heard until that 
night. Then I saw him distinctly, moving through the 
shadow of a little circle of light. 

" His countenance was as clear as the memory of my 



GETTING FREE 199 

father's face as I saw it for the last time a few months 
before. 

" The narrative of his journeyings and trials and disap- 
pointments ran on without a break. Even certain sentences 
came to me complete and unforgettable, clear-cut like a 
cameo." 

We know from the lips of many of the greatest men of 
the world who have lived in our own time that they re- 
ceived just as decided manifestations as that which is indi- 
cated in the above preface. 

It all proves that the psychic life is here, is trying to 
break through the walls of human resistance, and has its 
first stage on this globe. 

As has been stated, it does not begin in the sky, for the 
life there is known by another name. It makes one worthy 
to go to other worlds in the sky, but starts here on this orb 
for the very purpose of affording the opportunity of becom- 
ing free from the demon fund here. 

LAW. — As the psychic life is included in earthly exist- 
ence, it can be entered only during life on earth. 

The claim that a man can die in earth and rise to im- 
mortal estates after death, is absolutely without foundation. 
There is nothing in any religion to show such a hope. The 
facts that are known and proven here all contradict it, and 
psychic telepathy settles the matter for all time by its evi- 
dence. 

There is but one kind of death that will open the gates 
to immortality; and that is the death in the psychic world. 
As that world has its threshold here, it has no door that 
opens hereafter to the soul that seeks it; nor is the soul 
permitted to get away from earth unless it has first entered 
the psychic realm. 

The fact that this better life has been knocking at one's 
mind for many years, is not proof that it will remain on 
terms of association for all time. It is not fully under- 
stood whether or not the efforts of the subconscious powers 



200 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

to break through into the physical mind are accidental. If 
they are, it merely means that the power is so great and the 
barrier so weak that there is an overflow of the presence of 
the former. 

If, on the other hand, such efforts were known to be in- 
tentional, it would greatly encourage the whole human race ; 
for it would show that there is help awaiting the invitation 
to uplift man. He has been left to choose for himself the 
fate that he will be compelled to endure. He has been 
given the light that instinct affords to guide him In his 
feeblest struggles for existence on the earth; but this may 
be given for the sole purpose of keeping the race alive. If 
parentage were to cease all humanity would become extinct, 
and the waiting demons would be deprived of the opportu- 
nity of being born so that they may work out their destiny 
in the flesh. 

But aside from this slight help, man has been left to find 
out everything for himself. Nature has laughed at his ef- 
forts to master fire, heat, gravity, lightning, electricity and 
other elements; for she has gathered millions to her bosom 
as his luckless mishaps have felled him to death. She 
laughs at his untimely taking off in crowds of several hun- 
dred thousand every year through accident. The sooner the 
reckless folk are in the grave, the sooner the other demons 
will be given the opportunity to enter earthly life and try 
their chances with fate. 

It is an old and a true saying that " God will never do 
for man what man can do for himself." The race has had 
to find out everything without aid, and knows very little 
now of the real meaning of life and natural forces. 

Yet there may be an intent in the countless small in- 
stances in which the psychic world has shown glimpses of 
itself. Let us hope that this is true. But let us not cease 
to follow up a ceaseless hunt for more light on this very 
theme. This is one of the main purposes for which our 
Psychic Society exists. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

I AFTER DEATH. 

I 

v :jsjsj~-'. .'..'-'.'„'. s:.^.<,.':j :j ;j:j ^ '.'_>„'„'_' i , _'j.'^'_'„ | „ , „ , „' ."-'„'_'— '~':-'sj:scjcjz'J~ 

.I-KI...I ... I I I . 1 i~iV« 1 . i ...... .T. I I .1 . ... , . I . I . l.,i,.t..l ,~,~l\ 




± 




EYOND THE FINAL CHANGE that dis- 
solves the body of flesh, separates the spirit 
and ends the brief span here, there is dark- 
ness or light, depending on what decision was 
made before the change occurred. It can very 
readily be seen that the dividing of the ways 
must occur in the lifetime of the body. There 
is no opportunity hereafter to decide the matter. Here on 
earth the mind is given to man so that he may think and 
know, compare and see for himself what he faces. He has 
everything at hand with which to find the solution. He 
learns that in proportion as he lives aright he is rewarded ; 
and that the opposite course brings ill. These facts alone 
ought to carry conviction. But he has more. 

On every hand are beauties, pleasures that are wholesome, 
sweet influences and tender love to indicate what heaven is 
like. He walks between two fields. On one side there are 
exquisite evidences of bliss attainable even in this rough 
world. On the other side dark and yawning gulfs threaten 
him as they arch their grim entrances with the signs of prosti- 
tution, of gambling, of theft, of murder, of hell ; and all is 
pain and suffering. As he turns to look on one field he sees 
nothing of the other, for his back is toward it and it is 
hidden. 

LAW. — After death there is no individual life except in 
the psychic world. 

This truth has been shouted into the ears and stamped on 
the hearts of all intelligent men and women for thousands 



202 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

of years; sometimes in one form of religion, sometimes in 
another. But the doctrines of the leading theology of civili- 
zation are closest to the divine fact. It makes no difference 
what is believed ; the dividing line between the physical and 
and the psychic life is clear, sharp and decisive. There is 
never any doubt when a person has entered the psychic 
world. 

LAW. — - Unseen life is either demon or psychic. 

Heretofore for convenience as has been explained the term 
psychic has been applied to all forms of unseen powers and 
existences; but the time has come when it is necessary to so 
divide such life as to place the demons on one side and the 
psychic powers on the other. For the purposes of this work, 
the general term psychic has been sufficient, and it has been 
used to avoid too much classification and division. As we 
will soon leave the demons behind, w r e will merely refer to 
them in the remaining pages by that term. 

It has been stated that after death there is no individual 
life except in the psychic world. The demons exist as a 
fund, but there is no single personality that can have knowl- 
edge of its existence or remain a separate entity. The soul of 
one who dies in earth and is about to pass into the demon 
fund is often capable of marking its way along the path, but 
does not linger beyond the allotted time for dissolution. It 
has been stated that some souls are earth-bound ; by which 
is meant that they cannot leave this planet for some time 
if they are destined for the worlds beyond ; or that they 
dissolve into their funds so slowly that weeks, months and 
years are occupied in their procrastination. But this asser- 
tion has never been proved. If there is any evidence to 
sustain it, let the Psychic Society have it. We want the 
facts, and our members wish the truth. But we will not 
accept theories. We do not deal in them, and will not 
tolerate them. Nor do we care for explanation. Every- 
thing that occurs can be explained, not in one way, but in a 
dozen. Conclusions are the claims made after facts have 



AFTER DEATH 203 

been presented. But who is sure of reaching the right con- 
clusions unless the facts show them to be certain and un- 
mistakable? "What I see with nry own eyes I am sure 
of," is the usual argument. But is the conclusion always 
warranted ? 

Let us have the truth in such a way that there will be 
nothing to dispute, nothing to entertain doubts of, nothing 
to leave the mind in a quandary, nothing for after altera- 
tion in our views. 

LAW. — // is impossible for the soul in the psychic world 
to communicate with human beings. 

Earth is a thing of the past. There must be no knowl- 
edge of it. Loved ones who fail to get free in one genera- 
tion are returned to the demon fund to be re-melted, and 
re-molded. They may secure freedom in the next coming 
on earth. If they do, although they lose their identity in 
the interim, it is restored in the final journey to heaven, and 
they know and are known there. 

But it would be a source of constant grief to know of 
earth after once being free from it. All demon existence 
is wiped out, just as the wet sponge rubs the sum off the 
blackboard. Knowledge of this vale of tears, of this abode 
of hatred, of this hell, would open up the wounds of a life- 
time of suffering here, and make heaven a place not wholly 
free from hell. 

This then may be the reason why there is a barrier between 
the physical being and the psychic being; why the thoughts 
of the latter may not be known to the former; and, while 
there is universal knowledge in the latter, it is cut off from 
earth as soon as its connection ceases with the body of 
flesh. 

While abundant evidence is at hand to show the appear- 
ance of the soul in its flight for a day or two after death, 
all evidence soon ceases; and never, in all the long years 
that follow, does the psychic being manifest itself to those 
who remain on earth. If there are spirits at all, they are 



2o 4 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

in the demon world; but they exist there in horrible forms 
such as the thoughts of criminals and devils would assume, 
and those are the visions that appear to the fevered brain of 
the invalid, the insane and the drunkard. 

LAW. — The psychic body, once free, leaves earth, never 
to knoiv it again. 

The conditions that lead to happiness after the flight to 
other worlds compel the soul to close out all knowledge of 
this planet. It is bad enough to have been in hell without 
being reminded of it. The kind of life that was created 
in heaven was as near perfect as any free being could be 
made. Not all fell. There was only one Judas in the 
band of disciples that surrounded the Son of God ; and 
there could not have been a greater proportion of evil beings 
in the hosts that attended the Creator. Therefore only a 
small relative number fell ; yet they may have been thou- 
sands of millions, while forming a proportion of not more 
than one in a thousand. The misfortune came to compara- 
tively few, leaving the great majority untouched. Like a 
cancerous sore it festered to rebellion, and even the courts 
of heaven needed cleaning just as the band of disciples re- 
quired the elimination of the evil member. 

One is typified in the other. 

To be one of the number that belonged to that festering 
sore was a misfortune ; and all memory of it should cease 
when the cleansing has reached its end. 

LAW. — Every earthly life is a complete existence zvith 
the full possibilities of immortality. 

Despite the fact that the demon fund supplies all the 
beings that are born on earth, each individual is given the 
opportunity of freeing himself from the bondage of that influ- 
ence if he passes the divide. This is the line that separates 
the physical life from the psychic. Freedom occurs when 
all the demon nature is driven from the physical life. This 
is fully explained in the next chapter. As soon as this free- 
dom has been won, the being enters the psychic world as 



AFTER DEATH 205 

far as it exists on earth, and passes on to the other worlds 
in the sky. 

As the earth was made of material suited to build the 
bodies of flesh, and as its purpose is to give birth to the 
waiting souls that have been cast forth from the sky, that 
body of flesh is no longer required and is dropped. It is 
merely the physical part of the real existence. While it is 
the most substantial when measured by the standards of this 
world, it is really the least important. The mind may grow 
and develop, but it does not lose any part of itself. The 
soul and its psychic life are the same from before birth 
until after death. They never change. But the body of 
flesh is a constantly changing mass, unstable as the waves 
of the ocean. It lives only by change, and what is called 
life is the very process of alteration. To break down and 
re-build is necessary to the health of the body. It has no 
bearings, no anchorage, no fixed value, no final structure; 
but from the hour of first inception until it drops away in 
the last sleep it changes moment by moment. Such a body 
is of no use to an immortal being. 

It is a thing of earth. 

Therefore when death comes the soul either falls back 
to its demon fund to be re-melted and re-molded, or else it 
mounts up to the heavens for its place again among the 
higher beings. 

The body is left behind. 

The psychic being is the only important, the only un- 
changing existence of the individual. 

It lives regardless of substance. It is in the ether. It 
moves by the aid of the ether. It knows no law of gravity, 
and is not bound to earth. It is drawn by the power of 
universal magnetism to the world that is to become its first 
abode beyond. 

Time is made by the revolution of the earth on its axis, 
setting the pace of the day and night; and by the moon's 
passage around this orb, giving the months; and further by 



206 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

the circuit of the earth around the sun, reeling off the 
years. 

As the soul in its distant home knows nothing of such 
revolutions, it is not involved in the passing of time. 

As it travels by the law of ethereal impulse, it knows 
nothing of space. 

As it is not a substance, it knows nothing of heat and 
cold. The flaming suns and the ice cold planets are one 
and the same to its ethereal body. 

Mind is not substance ; therefore it would carry with it 
the full degree of intelligence. As the psychic mind knows 
everything without limitation, as far as the transactions of 
its own realm are concerned, it would be all-wise. Earth 
with its physical barriers alone are closed to it forever. The 
experiences in this world have been such that forgetfulness 
is a mercy. There has been nothing pleasant here for the 
greater numbers of the inhabitants. In an age when five 
hundred thousand men, women and children were put to a 
torturing death as occurred in the reign of one of the Roman 
emperors, and which stands forth as a type of the innate 
cruelty and demon character of earth, there is nothing that 
calls up loving recollections of an experience here. 

LAW. — Suicides and criminals are sent back to the 
demon fund and enter into the hideous forms of life that 
hover about the earth. 

No criminal can enter the psychic world. No suicide can 
have admission there; for suicide is murder. Nearly all the 
supposedly insane are those who have wantonly ruined their 
lives and hopes and thus broken down their minds, or who 
have disregarded the laws of health and given themselves 
up to perish in any way that fate may overtake them. They 
are parties to the demons that ruin them. 

There is a class of insane people who are descended from 
an ancestry that has indulged in habits that tend to ruin 
the body and its offspring; and on those parents rests the 
curse that follows to other generations, as God has expressly 



AFTER DEATH 207 

decreed. They and their offspring are re-melted and re- 
molded in demon life. Wherever there is insanity some one 
is to blame. The victim need not be the guilty party, but 
nature looks upon the line connectedly and the whole is 
rejected. An insane mind cannot enter eternal life. It is 
a blank, and must live again in order to make the effort to 
secure freedom from earth. 

The drinking man or woman ruins both body and soul, as 
well as the man or woman who assists in making the drunk- 
ard. This crime brings death to all who are parties to it. 
No one is innocent no matter under what guise he may 
serve. 

Gambling is an abject and debasing crime, whether it 
occurs in the filthy den, in the gilded hell, or the fashion- 
able parlor. It curses every person who indulges in it, or 
is associated with it. The pretended love of the noble horse 
which is used as a pretence to enter a life of gambling at 
the race track, damns the man or woman who yields to its 
criminal influence. The so-called innocent games in the 
drawing room that teach the spirit of gambling are on the 
same level with the bunco game and the moral character 
is no higher. 

There are four direct causes of insanity; any one of 
which may break down the mind. One is venery or the 
sensual waste of the body, which eats out the brain-cells. 
Another is the use of alcohol. The third is the spirit of 
gambling in any and every form. The fourth is the waste 
of the vitality of the body, whether by using the night hours 
for carousals, or drugging the blood with an excess of medi- 
cines, or any neglect or abuse of the splendid temple that 
God has made in which the soul is to make a trial for 
eternity. Whatever weakens the brain will bring on in- 
sanity, or set up a tendency in that direction. 

It is like taking changes in any desperate venture with 
possibilities of death standing on every hand. When at 
least the mind is gone, folks say: "Poor man, or poor 



208 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

woman, it is too bad, but it could not be helped." Nature 
knows better. If the human mind cannot learn better, it will 
have to suffer. Heaven wants mind and soul purged from 
the muddy vesture of earth, and so insanity cuts off all hope 
of immortality in that generation for the individual who 
suffers from it. 

Suicide, whether from insanity, as is sometimes the cause, 
or from a wanton disgust with life, or from mere pique, as 
in the case of the fellow whose girl has jilted him, or the 
girl who has been reprimanded by her mother, or from any 
other cause, great or little, is the most contemptible kind 
of murder known to nature. It is getting so common now 
that any person who has been offended or even slighted, will 
just as likely as not blow out his brains, as happened when a 
young man of good intellect ended his life because he had 
not been invited to a party. 

Suicides become the most hideous of all demons, taking 
rank with the murderers. They may be forced to have their 
birth in grovelling beasts or savages or other degraded beings 
such as snakes, reptiles or vermin ; and long generations must 
pass before they are reached by civilized parentage, if ever. 
The time is rapidly drawing nigh when the last vestige of 
hope will have fled and those who do not find escape from 
earth will constitute an endless hell here. 

One of the most eminent physiologists in Germany, a man 
who has devoted his life work to an investigation of the 
progress of humanity, and whose opinions have been received 
by all learned men as most valuable in the study of life, 
has recently written a work on the subject under discussion. 
He is Dr. Emil Koenig. He is positive that humanity is fast 
approaching its final doom. He is not a religious man and 
does not write from the standpoint of the theologist ; but ob- 
tains his information from a study and close investigation of 
the present and past conditions of man, of the earth, and the 
remarkable changes that are now in progress. The chemical 
and physical alterations of nature are distinct and decided, 



AFTER DEATH 209 

he says. Humanity has reached the zenith of its development 
and stands now at the dead point where the next movement 
will be a rapid decadence. There is certainly no physical 
hope for the race, if his conclusions are warranted. 

Diseases are increasing with such speed that the doctors 
will soon outrank the patients. In a population of about 
eighty millions, not five hundred thousand persons are in good 
health. The nitrogen is being taken fast out of the air, and 
without it no plant can live, nor will man or beast have 
food. One investigator has estimated that at the present 
rate of loss, the nitrogen will have been so decreased that in 
ten years life will begin to fade from the earth. 

LAW. — When the opportunity for parentage ceases, all 
unborn demons will remain forever shut out of the psychic 
world. 

Great changes are certainly at hand on this globe. The 
facts are gathered from the investigations made by men of 
the highest learning independent of any religious views. 
Chemistry, physiology and physical processes are studied and 
analyzed with a keen knowledge that allows no important 
fact to escape, and they furnish the laws which control the 
fate of every human being. 

14 




CHAPTER XXXIII. 

1 i 

STEPPING STONES. I 

!| I 



OPE IS THE STAR WORD of humanity. 
In its meaning is contained all that can be 
, sought or won through the efforts of man to 
free himself from the leash of earth. With the 
fulfilment of victory he is ready to set out on 
his voyage across the sky. The prospect is 
glorious. But will he have earned his passage? 
Let us see. To begin with he came from the demon fund 
that surrounds this orb. In coming into a body of flesh, he 
has been given the trial experience here in order to test his 
ability to free himself. 

What are the requirements? 
What are the roads ahead? 

If he fails, he goes back to that demon fund. In the 
Psychic Society there are men and women of every church 
denomination in the civilized world ; and one and all they 
believe in these laws as the first great exposition of the 
supreme facts of the universe. Not only are there many of 
the Protestant denominations, all included, not one faith 
being without representation ; but there are Catholics who 
are just as loyal and just as eager to have these doctrines 
told to all mankind. To them the scientific and physical 
demonstration of the existence of a demon fund answers the 
demand for a purgatory, or purging condition through which 
the unsaved individual is given a chance to come into im- 
mortality. " It is a perfect plan," writes one of the leading 
thinkers in that denomination, " and is indeed proved." 
There are two roads ahead. 



STEPPING STONES 211 

You may call the return to demon life a passage to purga- 
tory, or whatever process you please; it is described in this 
book as a proved fact and must stand for its face value as 
such. 

Assuming that you choose the other road, what are the 
requirements that must precede your winning the coveted 
goal? We will state them as they must occur, although all 
are as one single act on your part : 

1. You must in the first place want to free yourself from 
demon influences. Many persons do not care. 

2. Then you must have time and disposition on earth to 
perform your duties in the body of flesh. 

3. Finally you must in fact pass the dividing line between 
the demon influences and the psychic life. 

Let us look at these three conditions precedent. 

If you are indifferent about your freedom, if you must 
be urged by others to free yourself; in fact, if you have not 
a strong and ceaseless desire to escape from the demon influ- 
ences, then you will never get free. You will be returned 
to the demon fund, and in the course of time your indi- 
viduality will be restored and as a feeling, knowing being, 
you will enter into an endless state of suffering and pitiless 
tortures such as the former masses of humanity indulged in 
for their pastime, reflecting the fate that will bring all earthly 
life to an end. 

If you want to free yourself from such influences, you 
must choose for yourself, and not be led or coaxed to the 
change. 

Having found that you are of such desire, then you must 
lay in this life the foundation for the existence that may be 
gained after death. A sudden change of your nature will 
not help you at the last moment. There is no such thing 
as an immediate transfer of worlds without a test and proof 
of fitness. The criminal who reforms in jail prior to his 
execution goes to the demons; and, if he has slain a human 
being in wanton disregard of the laws of life, he will find 



212 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

his soul scourged in demon life to the very last dregs of 
hell, although he may have died in peace singing songs of 
salvation. There is no forgiveness for the villainy that has 
.not reformed itself by an open life on earth during years 
of trial. 

Nature is too shrewd to be deceived by pretence. Many a 
so-called conversion and after-feeling of safety, are but the 
hypnotic effects of suggestion under great fear, the most 
potent of all self-hypnotizing influences in the world. 

Life here is full of duties. 

There are many things that every man and woman must 
know, the greatest of which is how to become useful and 
helpfully industrious ; not necessarily by drudging toil, but 
in some way through the hours, days and weeks of the passing 
years, doing something that will be of value to self and 
others, not from the standpoint of money, but measured by 
the weight of good it may do in making life on earth a 
paradise. It need not be a great paradise, nor one of mag- 
nificence in a substantial sense ; for that which makes the 
heart love the earth is sure to be a type of heaven. 

At this stage of our work let us count up the Stepping 
Stones by which the demon life is transferred to the psychic 
life: It is not necessary to describe them at length. 

LAW. — Enough tune must elapse between the decision 
and first step in the psychic life on the one hand, and the 
death of the body on the other hand, to enable the individual 
to establish on earth a type of heaven. 

This law is the basis of the Stepping Stones. 

Without it there can be no hope for immortalit)^ unless 
the spirit returns again to the demons for remelting and 
re-molding. 

LAW. — There is no past. 

Everything is in the present and the future. 

What the past is, cannot exist. Memory has no abiding 
place in the psychic world. No one knows what has taken 
place. All beings see and know the ever present. 



STEPPING STONES 213 

In this law is the hope of immortality for those who have 
once been demons, and for those who, having been under 
evil influence, have succeeded in freeing themselves. In this 
law lies all the hope of safety for the man or woman who 
has committed crime, who has sinned, who has fallen into 
the abyss of shame and degradation. This law does not 
take away the function of any religion, but confirms it from 
the standpoint of a scientific demonstration. 

Where the past leaves a man or woman, there will the 
soul remain. 

If there is genuine reform in any life, no matter how 
bad it may have been, and if there is time left on earth for 
setting up a type of heaven here, then the wickedest soul 
gains a passport to the worlds beyond and to immortality. 

Repentance on the death-bed will not avail a person, for 
the reason that there is no time left for earthly tests. Such 
a repentance is the act of the physical mind only, and that 
function cannot take much part in a psychic life. 

The habit of converting criminals in the cells of our 
prisons when they are awaiting execution is not by any means 
to be discouraged, but it will serve only to lessen to a slight 
extent the grade of demon life to which that soul is to be 
consigned. You cannot send a murderer to heaven from 
the four walls of a prison cell. 

If such a process were possible, then the men who have 
been demons and fiends, who have led diabolical lives, who 
have slain without mercy, who have raped and torn open 
innocent women and girls, who have tortured without re- 
morse, or who have defied the laws of earth by committing 
the most devilish crimes in the name of lust or greed, then 
such men could take their chances until they were caught, 
after which all they need do is to repent and be launched 
upon a career of eternal bliss. No such law was ever or- 
dained by the Creator. 

Earth holds all that is most pure and most hellish in its 
bosom. 



214 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

It spans both extremes. 

There is nothing so horrible in any conceived abode of pun- 
ishment after death that it has not been duplicated here on 
this globe. 

There is nothing so beautiful and glorious in the noblest 
conceptions of heaven that it has not been aspired to in this 
world. 

Between these two ultra extremes every intermediate has 
been set up on earth. 

Here then is the opportunity for the individual who would 
pass the dividing line in time to win his passage to a better 
condition beyond. The Stepping Stones are each and every 
one essential. Let us see what they are, and how the journey 
may be started in this life; for here we take our first steps 
toward immortality. 

FIRST STEPPING STONE.— Each person must de- 
cide for self without coaxing or urging or suggestion under 
great stress of fear or suffering, that the demon life is not to 
be longer desired, and that the psychic world is the only hope 
of immortality. 

SECONL STEPPING STONE.— There must be both 
time and opportunity to set up on this earth a type of heaven 
in the heart, in the home if there be any, and in public. 

This requires time. Some prisons may afford such oppor- 
tunities, but the presumption is that they do not. It is true 
that men have in the past centuries been thrown into prison 
because of their goodness and religious belief, but they had 
won heaven before their incarceration. If they were bad 
and unworthy before they went to prison, they very likely 
deserved all or part of their punishment. 

THIRD STEPPING STONE.— The duties of life 
must be taken up and faithfully performed. 

One of the first of all duties is to assist in the support of 
the body, the making of a home where honest children may 
be brought into the world, and the maintenance of high pub- 
lic standards of purity. Life is so complex that these obliga- 



STEPPING STONES 215 

tions cannot be avoided. The hermit, the recluse, or the 
wholly ostracized individual cannot set up on earth a type 
of heaven. People must mingle with people and sustain a 
share of the burdens of existence in order that others may be 
encouraged to follow in the path of right. 

Idleness, whether in the home of the rich or the poor, is 
a natural crime. Useless pleasures that weary the soul and 
bring no healthful relief to the toiler, are ashes of death. 
The profession of social life whereby a woman exists solely 
for outdoing her neighbor in display and scenes of eating, 
cannot be atoned for by a few weeks of retirement and cessa- 
tion during Lent, nor by attendance at a fashionable church 
once a week, nor gifts to charity in any form. All these 
things are dead ashes in the moral body. 

FOURTH STEPPING STONE.— Simple methods of 
living' must be adopted. 

Not only the physical body and the mind require that 
there shall be a return to simple habits, but the soul stands 
most in need of such a regime. 

The complexity of modern foods is ruining one by one 
every organ in the body. A few items of food will sustain 
life, if taken in reasonable variety. No nobler specimen of 
created beings of flesh can be found than the perfect horse. 
In bone, sinew, muscle, nerves, blood and organic life, he is 
without flaw. A human being who could attain to such a 
physical condition would be a marvel. Yet the perfect horse 
gets along with three or four articles of food and with noth- 
ing but pure water. He takes no stimulants, no alcohol, no 
tea, no coffee, no chocolate, no soda water, no ice cream, no 
pastry, no cake, no puddings, nothing but plain, wholesome 
food and drink. It has been proved that the identical foods 
that will support a perfect horse will best support a human 
being, substituting for the hay the leaf foods of the vegetable 
garden, such as celery, lettuce, greens, cabbage, asparagus, 
spinach, beet tops, and the like ; all of which are in the grass 
class. 



2i6 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

If man had a half dozen or a dozen items of food, he 
would be better off physically. 

Not alone in foods, but in habits of occupying the time 
by day and night, and in the occupations that fill up the 
passing of the months, should the regime be simplified. 

It is admitted that humanity has a physical and a psychic 
nature; but the crowding of the days and nights with the 
mere physical and the complete denial of the psychic life 
within the former, breaks down all moral respect for the 
things that are most attractive when the bed of death is occu- 
pied. 

It all comes down to this proposition: 

There is a purpose in everything. There is usefulness in 
everything that belongs to the process of living. Is your 
day spent usefully and in accord with any definite purpose, 
or is it a drift of time, aimless, and useless? Recreation is 
useful, if it is wholesome. But it is not the goal of the day's 
existence. 

Complex and elaborate methods of living are hurtful, 
whether in the diet, or in the home, or in business, or in the 
professions, or in society. 

FIFTH STEPPING STONE.— There must be heaven 
in the heart. 

It is either demons or heaven; you cannot escape that 
fact. 

There are all grades of demons. The magnifying power 
of the fevered brain, or the inflamed sense of vision of the 
sufferer from delirium, or the enlargement of the optic nerve 
during great stress or excitement of any kind, will show all 
grades of demons. They must exist, or the brain could not 
possibly show them. We should be thankful that we cannot 
see them during the period of normal health. 

Some of these demons are in the lower ranks of animal life; 
some are higher up ; some are apparently human ; some are 
weak in their evil character, suggesting that they are not 
disposed to do harm; but none are attractive or inviting in 



STEPPING STONES 217 

any respect. They are all awaiting their time to be born in 
bodies of flesh on earth and thus seek to win a passport to 
their home in the sky from which they fell. While so wait- 
ing, they take on almost any guise in the demon fund, but 
cannot be dormant. In that condition they exert an influence 
over all human beings whose affiliations are of their kind. 
Some of these influences are horribly hideous, and seem to be 
exerted solely for the purpose of hurrying the living into their 
graves in order to hasten the time when they may come into 
bodies of flesh. Thus they inspire the feeling of war that 
sends hundreds of thousands of men into their graves, and 
deprives women and children of the joys of life, and thus 
hurries them to untimely death. This is but a small part of 
their work. 

The point here made is that they hold sway over the heart 
and mind of all human beings who are not living in the 
psychic world. 

If there is heaven in the heart, these evil influences will not 
have power. They will leave the home and hearth. They 
will not walk with the person who has succeeded in over- 
coming their influence. 

Heaven in the heart is founded upon one condition only; 
and this is summed up in the word : HONESTY. 

A person who is honest may test it by the only method 
known or that can ever be known, and that is this: in every 
act, in every thought, in every utterance, ask the question : 
Is it vjhat I would do, or think, or say if I stood face to 
face with my Creator? 

One man of world-wide fame writes this definition of 
heaven in the heart: "Will I do any act as freely before 
the eyes of my trusting friends as I will do it if I am sure 
that they will never know it? " 

Thinking over the foregoing inquiries, the accurate thinker 
will soon learn where to find the dividing line between evil 
and good. 

A man slept in a house with ten Italians. Had they 



218 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

murdered him, they would have been detected, and they 
knew it. He had money with him, and although it was 
small, there was not one Italian who would have hesitated 
to take his life if he was sure that no human being would 
find it out and bring him to an account for it. In fact, 
even if the sum of money was not more than ten dollars, 
every Italian in that gang would have committed murder 
for the pittance if detection were not possible. Their 
knowledge that they would have been arrested and tried as 
felons was all that saved the life of this man. 

But the ability to do wrong and escape detection of human 
sleuths, is not the test of a psychic life. Many a person 
passes in the public eye as honorable who is leading the life 
of a demon of evil and wickedness. The test in such case 
is in what the public may learn of the real facts. But that 
is not the true test. 

The psychic world is as open to all acts, all thoughts, all 
motives, all uttered and unuttered operations of the mind, 
as if they were proclaimed in tones of thunder from the 
housetops. How will you stand that test? 

You are about to commit an act of some kind. Ask your- 
self the question, Would I do this thing if I stood face to 
face with my Creator f 

When you can reply in the affirmative at any and all times, 
then you have brought heaven in your heart, and the great 
divide is crossed. 

You will be honest in deed, honest in word, honest in 
thought, and no dogma of religion, no creed of theology 
can take you out of the ranks that are marching to eternal 
bliss. 

Keep this keynote in your mind at all times. 

Beyond earth there is no phase of life that is not honest. 
There is no being that can suppose any other condition 
than honesty. It is the straight line of thought and deed. 
It is the clear light of every act. Dishonesty is a warped 
condition ; straight lines become crooked ; things are said 



STEPPING STONES 219 

that are not so, and acts are performed that deal out evil 
and wrong to others. 

In heaven such departure from straightness would amaze 
the beings there. It would seem like an insane condition the 
terror of which would throw all the courts of heaven into 
chaos. As they cannot conceive that a created being can say 
what is not true, or do what is not honest, they know noth- 
ing of it. 

Dishonesty, graft, theft, lies, evil in all guises, deceit, 
concealment of purpose under fair promises, all these things 
are part of earth, and there is no other orb in all the universe 
that can give birth to such moral monstrosities. 

The man or woman who would seek admission to the 
psychic world by pretence, by sham, by. hypocrisy, or by 
show of good intent when evil is in the heart, will gain 
nothing; for it is impossible to succeed in such disguises. 

Ask the question: "Am I honest?" and see how you 
can answer it. Or the question, " Am I deceiving any 
human being in what I do or say?" and see what your 
reply will be. Here is the test. 

There is no religion superior to that which teaches hon- 
esty. If you can make your every act and word and thought 
honest, just as honest as you would like to have it appear 
when you stand in the presence of your God, then you have 
nothing to fear. 

You may cover up your deeds and hide them from your 
fellow beings, but it will not pay. The goal is a return to 
the demon fund after death. Nothing but the white light, 
the pure white light, the absolutely clear and immaculate 
white light of honesty can save you. Religion does not al- 
ways make a person honest. Therefore religion cannot save 
you when it falls short of this end. If you belong to a 
church that does not make you honest, the church w r ill not 
bring you to safety. You who are members of churches 
know what we mean. If in spite of that membership, if in 
spite of your affiliation with good men, if in spite of your 



220 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

attendance upon communion and all the charity that you are 
credited with on the books, you are honest, you know it. 
No one else wants to know it. If you know you are not 
honest, it is time to know further that you have not crossed 
the great divide ; you are in the demon world and your souls 
will go back to its last source. 

There is not the slightest doubt about this fact. 

Therefore it is time that you should take an account of 
stock of yourself. 

Do not let the opinions of others influence you. 

You have sense enough to know that there can be no 
other test than that which is here presented. 

Do not allow yourself to be deceived. 

Think it over, and if you find that your church has not 
made your life honest, do not leave that church, but turn 
about and do the right thing: Get honest. It will not hurt 
you, or your creed, or your church, and it may do good all 
along the line. Study these things. Be sensible. 

If you will make everything bend to this one law, if you 
will stop splitting hairs about beliefs, if you will drop the- 
ories and cling to facts, if you will wake up to the clear 
light of a new morn the radiance of which is so full and 
strong that it will not admit of mistakes, then you will pin 
your faith and your creed and your dogmas and your theol- 
ogy to the highest of all rules of human conduct: Be honest. 

You then cannot fail. You cannot go down. You can- 
not be sent back, the body to the earth and the soul to the 
demons; but your spirit will have entered the psychic world, 
and it will be safe. 

A sudden shifting from your present methods to a brief 
period of honesty will not do. You may be honest as long 
as it is convenient, but nature will not be deceived. 

Your honesty must show in your life, in your home, 
in your conduct towards others, in your public relationship. 
There must be time for it to develop and set up heaven in 
your heart. This cannot come at the mere word of com- 



STEPPING STONES 221 

mand. It is a growth that must put on foliage, and send 
out branches, and blossom into flowers, many of which 
must bear fruit. Just as it requires time to re-work the 
soil in the orchard where a decrepit and crooked tree has 
been wasting the vitality of the land to no purpose, and just 
as it requires time to start the new growth, the buds of 
spring, the blossoms, the setting of the fruit, the long waiting 
during the heat of a battling summer, and the cropping in 
the fall, so your new life must take its period of change and 
development. 

Honesty is not a fiat. 

It cannot be decreed by the command of the will or the 
decision of the mind alone. These are necessary, but they 
are not enough. 

Take time. Set up a type of heaven on earth. When 
you die you will go from what you are and what you have 
actually adopted in your life as a genuinely new condition. 

Your mind cannot take you to heaven. 

It is what of heaven you help to establish on this earth 
that must determine your success or your failure. 

SIXTH STEPPING STONE.— Love of life on earth 
must never cease. 

The meaning of this command is that an honest person 
must remain here and do all in his power to help others. 
A good example, even without words, is an influence that 
is sure to encourage those who behold it. To such an 
example may be added speech, kindly deeds and a sweet com- 
panionship that shall be a token of a better world. 

Earth holds in its widest scope the broadest extremes of 
good and evil. While wrong is in so large a majority that 
time can never efface it all, every inch of progress made 
toward a better condition is genuine helpfulness. Charity 
that consists of alms alone, or of building institutions, does 
almost no good, for it takes away the ambition and self- 
effort that are necessary in each individual. The best char- 
ity is that which reduces the causes of evil and misfortune, 



222 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

rather than that which heals the wounds they inflict. Earth 
to-day has very little of such charity. 

Never in the history of an advanced civilization was there 
such a combination of puerile and silly influences as now 
exist, all tending to drag down both mind and soul. You 
may not realize what is meant; but you should obtain a 
blank book and begin to note down these things and see 
what you have gathered in a year. Both from a public 
and a private standpoint such influences are abundant and 
prominent in the effects they produce on each individual 
life. 

The idea of heaven is practical when it is sound. 

Very little is known or can be imagined of the occupa- 
tions in the far away worlds of the sky; and so there has 
come into most minds a series of pictures that have no place 
in fact. The nearest approach to a realization in this world 
of what is in store beyond, is to be had through the aid of 
psychic telepathy, and that tells us that all life worth living 
here or hereafter is practical and not merely sentimental. 

For this reason it is the duty of every man and woman to 
seek the better things that are at hand on every side in 
this world. Nature teems with blessings that need only 
the taking to be had; and there are others that yield in 
abundance under the guidance of man. 

If life here is a failure, it means the doom of the indi- 
vidual who so finds it. Wealth brings less happiness than 
poverty; but grinding starvation is a penalty that is being 
paid for the offenses committed at some stage of life. There 
is no person so poor that he cannot rise out of his condition 
by combining sensible thinking with sensible conduct. 
When these two agencies are dead, then the mind is too 
warped for physical existence, or too criminal for advance- 
ment. 

Where the nature of a person runs to the sensual and 
the beastly, nothing can be hoped for. Appetite must have 
its sway, and the end is in the fund of demon life. 



STEPPING STONES 223 

It is a mistake to look for phenomena as signs of some- 
thing better. It is a mistake to build hope on a supposed 
previous existence on earth. If you think that you once 
lived on this globe, the sooner you forget it the better ; for 
you are in the same position as the newly-rich man who had 
his ancestors investigated and found that every one of them 
had been hanged. 

It is a mistake to seek in thin-brained systems some tinsel 
hope of a better life. Your duty is to yourself and those 
who depend on you, and it begins here and now. Chase no 
rainbows. 

When you have crossed the dividing line and have come 
into the new world, you will know it with a certainty. 
There can be no doubt on that point, as the experience will 
be decided and permanent. But that world has its begin- 
ning in this life, and you will deceive yourself if you build 
hope on a belief that it is wholly beyond. 

It is like a ladder that rests on earth. If it lacks this 
anchorage it cannot be ascended. It is both a beginning 
and a means of transit. It somewhat resembles the recruit- 
ing school where sculptors were developed until they were 
qualified to be sent far away to work on a grand temple; 
they could not start on that journey as long as they showed 
a lack of qualification for the conditions elsewhere. 



224 




CHAPTER XXXIV. 



WHIRLING THROUGH SPACE. 



ID YOU EVER STOP to think that the 
ball on which you live is an active world travel- 
ing three kinds of journeys at one and the 
same time? It is a rolling orb, having an 
imaginary axis on which it spins at the rate 
of about one thousand miles an hour. That 
is, its surface if viewed by some person sta- 
tioned away from it, would sweep past at that rate. In 
addition to this motion, the earth has been whipped off 
from the sun and sent whirling through space at another 
rate of speed that would seem appalling to one who is used 
only to the laws that are at work on the surface of the 
globe. This rate is about thirty times faster than that of 
the earth on its axis. 

The third journey is that of the whole solar system 
through space. This has been variously estimated, but it 
is known to exceed one million miles an hour. 

To train the mind to understand the meaning and im- 
mensity of these great rates of speed, let us suppose that 
we are stationed far away from the earth, but not beyond 
the range of vision of all the details of form, shape and 
movement on the outside of the giant ball. We must pass 
beyond its atmosphere, and must suppose that we are not 
affected by heat or cold, or lack of the necessaries of life. 
Of course this is all imaginary, as it would be physically 
impossible. The only thing certain about it is what we will 
see, and this will be described with accuracy. 

The first fact that will impress us is the wonderful 



WHIRLING THROUGH SPACE 225 

rapidity of passing objects on the face of the globe. They 
will go by us at the rate of about one thousand miles an 
hour. If we stand on a hillside and note the movement of 
a train that is known to be running at the rate of a mile 
a minute, or sixty miles an hour, the thing does not seem 
speedy; but if we are close to the track, it is most rapid, 
and we catch our breath at the thought that anything made 
of substance can fly over the ground with such amazing 
swiftness. 

Now sixty miles is a snail-like, creeping motion when 
compared with the sweep of one thousand miles an hour 
which the surface of the earth makes as it whirls its con- 
tents past our startled vision, even if we are some distance 
away. 

The second fact that will impress us is the apparent 
solidity of this ball. It has all the appearance of a big, 
over-grown, massive missile, set whirling by some unexplain- 
able power, and carrying on its face so many countless bil- 
lion tons of substance that it ought to be furnished with a 
rock center of adamant, else it would break and crack up 
into fragments. Still if such an accident were to occur, 
the pieces would all be held to the planet by the law of 
gravity. 

The third fact that will impress us is the panoramic 
display that whizzes past as though a gale blowing at the 
rate of a thousand miles an hour were chasing everything 
before it. This series of incomparable pictures is more 
varied than the mind of man can conceive, and their inter- 
minable rush puzzles and stupefies the brain. 

The fourth fact that will impress us is the dignity and 
steadiness of every part of the face of this madly whirling 
world. There is no confusion, no mishap, no chaotic con- 
dition out of which we may expect disaster. All is calm 
and supreme repression. 

If our position is taken directly over the tropics, we see 
the lands of the thinly clad peoples, of giant foliage, of 
15 



226 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

mountains topped with rock and snow, or rivers like silver 
threads winding their way through vales and down steep 
valleys into the meadows from which they escape into the 
great seas. Cities perched high on rocky seats; villages 
nestling along the open plateaux; high spires pointing directly 
toward us for the brief fraction of a second and then 
seemingly inclining over to their sides until they disappear 
off the edge of the horizon ; mills puffing their smoke and 
darting out of sight ere they have given vent to their 
activities; fields stretching away like carpets that are rest- 
less to reveal their intricate patterns ; deserts of sand that 
glitter in golden brown beneath a hot sun; the wide oceans 
that come and go, now like a sheet of glass, and again in 
tossing swells reaching from continent to continent; all 
these things pass in review before the reeling brain. 

If we are along the southern belt of the earth, there is 
a succession of water and ice, all beautiful to behold, and 
even more attractive because of the welcome arrival from 
time to time of islands and polar continents. 

But the northern belt is that of civilization. The whole 
width of the United States is speeding by spread out before 
the eye, and disclosing a varied panorama that is en- 
chanting. The Atlantic waters have just swept on, and 
the long and rugged coast line looms up from Maine to 
Florida, rock-bound, fringed, jagged, pointing, sandy, 
marshy, full of inlets, and terminating in scattered drops 
of islands far away to the south. 

The pine forests bending to the west now rise in majesty, 
hold high their heads for a shadow of a second, then rapidly 
bend to the east as they are hurried off the scene. The 
eastern coast line runs away so fast that we think it is an 
elusive serpent of rock-made hide. 

The king of the New England mountains with its sea 
of devoted attendants, touched with a hoar frost leaps out 
of the west and is erect for a moment and then rushes wildly 
to the fading edge of the horizon, followed by the less 



WHIRLING THROUGH SPACE 227 

ambitious elevations of the greener state. Cities with build- 
ings that kiss the sky, rock and roll and tip and bend and 
plunge to the mists of the falling east, as they come and 
go in a marvelous succession. 

New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington are 
dots on the great ball, and they seem with their countless 
buildings to be ant-hills checkered with grooves. In one 
mad dash the capitol, seemingly attached to the monument 
that pierces the air, speeds by. We think that the spire will 
break, so low and flat it looks when first it comes up over the 
western edge of the earth, but as the globe rolls onward, 
the granite shaft begins to right itself, and finally stands 
erect and proud in its glory, then leans, leans, leans more 
and more, and still more till it is almost level and is gone 
toward the waters of the Atlantic, following the historic 
Potomac and the lashing Chesapeake. 

The smoky city rushes on the scene after hills and rivers 
have been sent before it to clear the path. In the tier of 
states running to the gulf there are many events being en- 
acted, and life takes on a new appearance. To the far 
north are lakes like seas, a veritable inland ocean, and sterile 
countries are barely visible over the chain of waters. Again 
mighty cities rise, stand up to be seen, and fall eastward to 
be lost in the cloudy haze. The uplands grow in height 
from one end of the continent to the other and are cut with 
rivers that wind in and out through them, sustaining on their 
banks the crowded habitations of men. Fences and walls 
give a veined appearance to the open land as though a puls- 
ing life-blood were throbbing over all the surface. 

It is a busy scene. 

Higher and higher the face of the globe uplifts itself until 
the rocky range sweeps past hurrying to the eastward at the 
rate of a thousand miles an hour. There is no tremor, no 
unsteadiness as this vast upheaval is carried on in its daz- 
zling speed, for its foundations are sunk deep in the globe. 
More mountains appear and disappear; and at length the 



228 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

Pacific Ocean gleams bright like a boundless sheet of ice 
fringed with the golden land of the west. 

There is now nothing but ocean, nothing but water, 
nothing but monotony, save for specks that may be ships 
and up-tossed rocks, and land that must be islands. On, 
on the sweeping waters rush, whirling ever past us like a 
sliding sheen that throws back the light of the sun more 
bright than mirror or jeweled glass. Far away a new con- 
tinent begins to awake; the Orient is at hand. Here the 
yellow races and the brown races and the black races, all 
in multiplied confusion, take up their dreary duties like 
swarms of ants on sodden ground. 

The panorama shifts with hastening change; and sea, 
mountain and upland vie with the plains and wilderness to 
make up a passing picture; the great ranges, snow-topped 
and so sharp and tall that they must, we would think, stag- 
ger the reeling world and throw it off its center, come 
grandly up out of the west, and run their course in open 
view for many minutes, then cut new paths down the eastern 
side of the globe, and so are gone. 

Oldest earth is beneath us. It is the birthplace of man. 
And we view with increasing wonder the course once taken 
by the migrating hordes thousands of years ago when civ- 
ilization marched forth to conquer Europe. We travel 
the same journey in four hours that they traversed in four 
thousand years. Old Palestine sweeps by; the ancient sea 
comes on, and in its bosom is seen the land where the mind 
of man rose to dizzy heights. From Greece to Italy, from 
Athens to Rome, we seem to sail, as the speeding surface 
rushes swiftly by; and the waters where teeming millions 
came and went, and on which nature enacted many a 
tragedy, are passing beneath us in wondrous flight. All the 
continent, sharpened to a point at the topmost peak of the 
Alps, lies spread out before us; while the snug little islands 
where civilization was re-born, are dimly viewed away to 
the north. 



WHIRLING THROUGH SPACE 229 

Westward the course of passage takes its way, and over 
the broad Atlantic the scene sweeps on to the new world. 

What a wonderful ball is this that is flung into space! 

What magnificent pictures are made to pass in review be- 
fore us! 

The face of the earth is carpeted in green, sometimes 
bright, sometimes dark, and the furry coat that wraps it like 
a garment is an endless cover of trees, bright and fresh in 
the spring, deep and dark in the summer, then gold, yellow, 
red and brown in the autumn, until all is bare, and the 
winding sheet of pure white overspreads the world. 

It is a rich variety. 

Shore and sea ; lake, river and pond ; brook, field and 
meadow; hill, vale and ravine; mountain, cliff and preci- 
pice; woods, plains and prairie; sand, desert, and plateau; 
city, village and town; rich and fertile farms, or dull and 
barren rocks ; forest and glen ; cave and morass ; all, all 
are mixed and mingled in unceasing change to suit the needs 
and the vagaries of man. 

This is the earth, or that small portion of it that appears 
on the thin and filmy surface. It is a ball of rock, mellowed 
at the outer part in order that man may have its uses and its 
gifts. 

It was planned many millions of years ago and brought 
through all its vicissitudes that it might meet the require- 
ments of the beings that were destined to people it. 

If one world can be so constructed that it will suit the 
wants of physical life, then each and every world in the sky 
can be given equal attention in the planning and making so 
that it will adapt itself to every need and wish of those 
higher beings that dwell there. There is evidence on every 
hand of a creative thought that makes all things for a defi- 
nite purpose, without waste or loss. 

Our position will now change. 

We have been placed in the path of the sun where we 
could see the ever bright face of the earth. We have been 



230 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

held in the same orbital radius, so that the planet has not 
left us, but its surface has been rolling by. 

Now the imagination will take us to some outer position 
in the solar system, but only for a second. We see the great 
ball of rock whizz past on its annual circle, but its speed of 
thirty thousand miles an hour is too great to be realized, 
for it is come and gone ere we can understand what the swift 
flight means. But as it swings by, its rolling surface main- 
tains its first motion in combination with the second, like a 
spinning top rotating in a large ring. 

The third and last position in the imagination is that 
which puts us in space beyond all the planets of our sun- 
system. Now the sun itself and all its followers sweep 
past us as a group, impelled on a journey among the other 
stars, travelling at the rate of nearly a million miles an 
hour; yet we are so far away from the nearest star in space 
that it would require thousands of years to effect a relative 
change of position. If you will look out to the north on 
some clear night, you will see the plow, or what is popu- 
larly known as the big dipper. The basin of the constella- 
tion is perfectly shaped, and has been for the past two 
thousand years; but in twice that time in the future, its 
stars will have changed so that there is no semblance to a 
dipper in its shape. Like all other stars in the sky, they each 
have planets and satellites, and are distinct from their near- 
est neighbors by so many billions of miles that the mind can- 
not conceive or compute it. 

The earth is probably a solid rock, containing all the 
elements in its composition. In trying to cut a compara- 
tively small channel across the Isthmus of Panama, a 
scratch so very slight that it would not have received any 
attention from our first position in space, we find that mil- 
lions of tons of heavy earth must be moved. To a single 
individual, this mass of weight seems most ponderous; yet 
it is as nothing to the whole globe itself. 

Whence came this mass? 



WHIRLING THROUGH SPACE 231 

How did all this substance reach the present form and 
shape and position in the sky? 

Was it contributed from some greater world afar off? 

Was it made to order, and given birth here? 

Was so much weight and ponderous material thrown forth 
from the sun, despite the fact that the sun seems to have 
no weight whatever except what may be contained in flaming 
gases? 

This wonderful world with its differing elements; its 
coal and other fuel stored away in its bosom; its mines of 
iron, copper, lead, tin, silver and gold; its jewels, diamonds, 
rubies, and precious stones; its yield of every kind of paper 
and fabric, of countless species of animal and vegetable life, 
of flower and herb unlimited ; this wonderful world is but a 
feeble reminder of the more glorious orbs that float in the 
sky, each one of which is equipped with attractions that far 
surpass our own little globe. 

But from what source came the substance that makes up 
this tremendous weight that rolls in space? No person can 
ignore the question, for it is the test of a thoughtful and ap- 
preciative mind. 

How could all this material be brought out here and 
formed into a ball and set going on its axis whirling through 
the sky? 

Are the other worlds made of substance or of light? 

Let us think over this problem, and see what way it points 
our minds. 

Nothing can happen without a cause. Nothing takes place 
by accident. If any person thinks otherwise, the study of 
psychic telepathy will settle that doubt so quickly that only 
humility and shame will be left. Nothing is wasted. Every- 
thing has a purpose and a goal. For each man or woman 
that breathes at this moment there is a fate, a destiny. Born 
of the very soil that makes the earth, holding in his body not 
less than fourteen of the elements of which the globe is com- 
posed, he sprang out of the very clay on which he treads, and 



232 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

to it he will of necessity return. When the years have 
elapsed into centuries and the centuries have moldered into 
aeons, will that living, breathing, human organism be wrap- 
ped in the silent crust of this earth and so go on whirling 
forever through space? 

Or is there something that passes out into the sky and seeks 
its home amid the glories of other realms whose dazzling 
splendors outshine the brilliant promises of our fondest 
hopes? 

Without the shadow of a doubt the sun-system in which 
we now live, is part of the general heavens, and is bound to 
the great plan that made them all one. This being true, . 
the answer to our query is plain, and it will be discussed 
in the following pages. 



233 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



SK s *-'iKi'-'l< ' -l/VI-VI^ )AlA.|Ai ^ l»I» t -SI " 1 A1^ .I/Vf ' I ' >/\!^ IAIA |AK' IA|A,- |^|AI - ' < A1/M A_. _A>A\t/\J/\r/MA 

| OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS. | 

^z/m^c '^-"'j^j-Z-'-ii'^JSJSJ r ' i< a <_t - i^_t a' a t_M am_.-m.aj a i^_t ,-m -M^rM^vM^ <_2j_zj ai 1^ '^At/M^j^^K 




ANY GENERATIONS AGO, long before 
the great astronomer of our own times used the 
phrase as the name of his most popular book, 
the title of this chapter was a common theme 
for discussion and learned essays. The belief 
in the flatness of the earth had given way slowly 
but steadily, and at length the orb was circled 
by navigators which left no doubt of the shape of our planet, 
Then it was known that there were other worlds in space. 
The sun was seen as a fixed center, but the stars were of dif- 
ferent character. Some of them moved past each other, 
while all took their course to the west. Even the stars in 
their constellations displaced other groups, and the zodiac 
was then understood to be a circle of star-pictures occupy- 
ing the whole range of the middle heavens. 

The orbs that shone with borrowed light were found to 
belong to our own solar system, and were held in their paths 
by the magnetism of the sun. 

Each star in the sky is the center and seat of government 
of a group of planets, more or less numerous, if it follows 
the plan that is visible to us. As every planet in the solar 
group differs from every other one in marked characteristics, 
some of them being exceedingly beautiful and attractive to 
the mind in its contemplation of life on them, so it is reasona- 
ble to assume that all the billions of other planets are sep- 
arately designed with a view to affording an endless chain 
of interest and occupation. 

When Proctor sat near the summit of a mountain one 



234 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY. 

moonless night and saw the massed galaxy before him, saw 
the great stars of giant magnitude and the lesser ones nearer 
or farther away, and realized that the telescope which digs 
depths in the abyss of space that are unfathomable, serves 
only to reveal more and more worlds like an accumulation 
of sands in the strand by the sea, all uncountable and in- 
comprehensible because of their vast numbers, he suddenly 
became white and exclaimed : "Every star is a sun, and every 
sun has its system of planets and satellites, and not one of 
them is wasted. No, not one. I am sure of it. I have 
studied the stars, have written many books on them, have 
been active with the telescope for more than half my life, and 
have been given all the light that can come to humanity 
by hard study and hard thinking, and I say that I know 
that not one orb in the whole sky is wasted. It plays some 
part in the great drama that is being enacted beyond." 

He stood foremost in his day as a deep thinker, a careful 
scholar, and an exact scientist in his great profession. His 
close investigations of the orbs of the sky gave him a pecul- 
iar power to discern facts that might not otherwise have 
come to him. He had an almost sublime faith in psychic 
telepathy, as he personally told the writer of these pages. 

And he had reached the right conclusion. 

Nothing is wasted. Nothing is allowed to die that will 
not live again. Nothing is kept forever in a dead condition. 
There are no worlds that are useless. To believe such a 
thing would take from the purpose of the Ruler of the uni- 
verse the very essence of existence. 

If you were to take one million steps, each thirty inches 
long, which is the average pace, you would have walked 2,- 
500,000 feet, or nearly 500 miles. 

If you were to take ten million steps you would have 
walked nearly five thousand miles. One hundred million 
steps would bring you almost 50,000 miles, or twice around 
the globe. One billion steps would constitute a journey of 
about 500,000 miles. 



OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS 235 

Now supposing that you could travel that number of steps, 
one billion, or one thousand million paces, and at each step 
you could touch a world, you would have touched only a 
billion of the orbs in space. 

If your mind is able to keep up its chain of thought along 
these lines, see if you can imagine what length of time it 
would require for you to stop off at each of the worlds, not 
for a minute, but for an hour. You would make one thou- 
sand million visits. Go farther now, and instead of stopping 
off, suppose you make each world your abode, not for a day, 
nor a year, but for a long lifetime. There were one thou- 
sand million such worlds before you, and as many periods of 
existence. 

Having gone thus far, let us see if you are able to grasp 
one more idea. Instead of a thousand million or a billion 
worlds, there are in fact more billions than you can multiply 
by billions. Take a large piece of paper, say ten feet long 
and ten feet wide, and write on both sides of it with a fine 
pointed pencil so that you will not waste the smallest part 
of the eighth of an inch of space on that paper; and com- 
mence to multiply billions times billions until the two sides 
of the sheet are covered with figures. Or, better still, be- 
gin with the sands on the Atlantic coast as far north as you 
can find them, and count every grain that exists around the 
whole continent from north to south and from south to 
north again, and as you count them, regard each as a world 
in the sky, and the sky as full of such worlds as the beaches 
of earth are full of grains of sand, and you will begin to 
have an idea of the immensity of creation. 

Now think that each such world is probably much larger 
than our earth, that it is a complete and complex realm as 
full of beauties, splendors and glories as the infinite art of 
God can conceive, that it is also the abode of created beings, 
that there are occupations that round out the years as we may 
call them for convenience of terms, that there is a develop- 
ment and progress, pleasure and satisfaction in every act, 



236 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

freedom from the ills that abound in this world, and no 
possibility of death or trouble, enmity or suffering. 

Think of the fact that each and every life that passes 
from earth to the sky, will live a long and perfect era in 
each and every world in the universe; and that there are as 
many such worlds as there are grains of sand on the conti- 
nents; uncountable, numberless, endless in their succession, 
each a magnificent kingdom. 

All these worlds are yours. 



237 



FOURTH DIVISION 



ORGANIZATION 

OF THE 

PSYCHIC SOCIETY. 



BY THE COMMITTEE. 



239 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

^ClVl7 ~l~ Cl Jlv I v I .KlVl,l,KI.IUvl.l.l,l.tvl-l.l.l,l,l.^lvl.l»l,l - I v l\Tl\/l\7l^7K 



J: 
± 

ri.i........ i i . i . i . . . . i". ... w. ■" 4". . . i~i" . . . i : ~ i".~. r r. i i i i .".,._> i . i. i. i.ri- 



1 PLAN OF ORGANIZATION. 




HE PSYCHIC SOCIETY In its original 
form came into existence about thirty years 
ago. It then included many persons of great 
wealth who were intensely interested in the 
investigations being carried on by men of 
the highest learning and qualifications. The 
combination of capital and fitness for the 
great tasks ahead, was absolutely necessary. The lack of 
either would mean failure in securing the desired results. 

About twenty years ago, the first printed statements were 
issued, but were not made public. There were very few 
definite conclusions, and practically nothing for widespread 
circulation. Nor had there been any intention of publish- 
ing books for sale. The members of the Psychic Society 
were seeking certain knowledge by which to dispel the 
clouds of doubt and speculative theories. 

As a larger following was needed for the purpose of ex- 
tending the investigations, securing a greater number of 
facts, and running down the too frequent rumors of psychic 
occurrences, it was deemed wise to invite two thousand 
persons to form a class which would act in conjunction with 
our association; and this was done in the year 1889, or 
nearly nineteen years ago. Two thousand new members 
were obtained in a very short time, as there seemed to be 
a general desire to know the truth in matters of this kind. 
In the year 1896 it was possible to make known some 
of the principles that had been established by the long 
years of research, and a book on physical telepathy was 



2 4 o THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

published and offered to the general public. The dedi- 
cation of that volume was proffered by Edmund Shaftes- 
bury on Sept. I, 1896 " to the two thousand ladies and 
gentlemen " who had entered into the study of psychic 
phenomena under .the invitation of 1889, seven years prior. 

That book is still on sale. 

Under the plan set forth in the final chapter of that 
volume a branch society was organized in 1896, known 
as the S. P. S., and the work and influence were so greatly 
extended that rapid progress was made in gathering new 
facts, and settling many points concerning which there had 
been much doubt and conflicting opinion. 

Three foundation principles in the mode of operating 
were adopted and maintained during all these years: 

1. The names of members were never to be made public. 
This policy has been adhered to at all times, and will 
still be followed in the future. There is no occasion for 
publishing the names of members, and privacy has enabled 
us to accomplish results that would have been impossible, 
had the members not felt sure that their part in the work 
of sifting reports and hunting for the truth, would be kept 
strictly from the public gaze. 

2. All investigations have been carried on by members 
in their private capacity, and not in the name of the 
Society. We were not in the work for advertising pur- 
poses and therefore did not seek newspaper notoriety or 
fame through any channel. All we wanted was the truth. 

3. The expenses, aggregating millions of dollars, were 
borne by wealthy members, of their own choice. There 
has never been an appeal to any person for money, and 
there never will be such solicitation in the future. We 
have ample means at command to pay for all work that 
may arise in which we send out representatives to get at 
the facts of cases. Sometimes we employ detectives who 
are able to find valuable witnesses to occurrences, and these 
are often aided by lawyers of high standing who are qual- 



PLAN OF ORGANIZATION 241 

ified for the task of sifting the testimony and securing the 
truth. 

While much has been accomplished and many facts have 
been brought to light, the field of discovery has still many 
opportunities for adding to the fund of knowledge on the 
subjects which claim our attention. Enough has been 
ascertained to warrant the publication of the present 
volume in the hope that it will do a vast amount of good 
in the world by telling people the exact truth about 
matters which alarm or mislead them. 

THE FIRST RESOLUTIONS WILL SHOW OUR MOTIVES, 

At the start, when the Psychic Society was on the thresh- 
old of its great undertakings, it adopted the following 
resolutions and voted to keep them always in mind : 

I. We recognize the fact that there are occurrences 
and happenings that are not ordinarily natural. 

" 2. We know that many of the phenomena are mis- 
reported, and that the claims are either dishonest, or are 
honest mistakes. 

" 3. We realize, nevertheless, that some things are 
strange and unusual, and cannot be explained by any 
known laws of nature. 

"4. It cannot be disputed that there is a very large class 
of people, many of whom are of the highest intelligence, 
who sincerely believe that these unexplained occurrences 
are caused by supernatural powers ; while others dispute 
such belief and are equally certain that no such powers 
exist; and a third class is unable to come to a definite con- 
clusion either way. 

" 5. It is a deplorable fact that these doubts and shift- 
ing beliefs have led to many new doctrines and hurtful 
theories that can have no other result than to unfit a person 
for the true duties of this life. A part proof of an occur- 
rence that is strange and unusual, often sets the mind in a 
16 



242 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

disturbed condition from which it emerges with new ideas 
that are impracticable and visionary. In such a condition 
the will power yields to the efforts of leaders who have 
new religions to establish, and harm is sure to follow. 

" 6. But the greatest injury arises from the claims of 
charlatans who make use of this field more than any other 
in which to sow false seed and reap a wicked harvest. 
There are numberless books offered for sale that pretend 
to lay bare the facts, but that are untruthful from begin- 
ning to end. All the theories of the so-called occult 
sciences are cheap claptrap and invented falsehoods, in 
which there is not one grain of truth; yet they are read 
and believed by millions of people, whose minds are thus 
warped and their usefulness in the world is decreased ac- 
cordingly. 

" 7. It is time that the truth be known. But to be 
known it must be discovered. To be discovered, all claims 
that have any basis whatever should be investigated, no 
matter what and where the matters may have occurred. 
When the truth has been secured, only part of the battle 
will have been won. Something more is necessary. 

" 8. It has long ago been established that there are fixed 
laws in nature that govern all transactions whether or- 
dinary or extraordinary; and the facts that are discovered 
by investigation and research do not prove of benefit to 
the world unless they are traced to their meanings, pur- 
poses and governing laws. 

" 9. For the double purpose of first securing the facts 
in their plain and honest garb, and then finding the true 
laws that operate them, a powerful society is necessary, 
combining ability with intelligence and backed by unlimited 
financial means; and to this end we are urged to seek such 
members as will come into our ranks with a full under- 
standing of the needs of humanity in these respects. 

" 10. In order that the progress of the work may be 
effective, all original members must place in writing and 



PLAN OF ORGANIZATION 243 

on record their full answers to the questions that arise 
in the first steps of psychic research, so that their beliefs, 
fixed ideas and prejudices may be fairly understood at the 
start, each to all other members; and they must further 
aver that they are mentally capable of laying aside any 
and all beliefs as new facts and new laws are discovered, 
if truth and honest sincerity demand such sacrifice." 

All this occurred thirty years ago. 

Some applicants for admission were found to be mentally 
warped by preconceived notions about supernatural hap- 
penings, and they were not allowed to come into the 
Society. There is nothing so obstructive and hurtful in 
the search of truth, as the theories of prejudice or pet 
doctrines which people WILL NOT lay aside so as to 
give honest judgment the right of way. " I believe so 
and so," says a man or woman, " and no power on earth 
or above the earth can change me." Such a fixed mind 
is calcareous, bony, and actually fossilized ; it has lost all 
flexibility of thinking; it looks backward, and does not 
know that there is an onward road anywhere in the uni- 
verse. 

Having started right, the Psychic Society found itself 
able to understand and appreciate the truth wherever it ap- 
peared. 

The world that Columbus discovered was not a benefit 
to himself. 

He gave the blessings of knowledge and discovery and 
a new pathway in the waters of an unknown sea, to all 
humanity. 

This is the highest good that the Psychic Society can 
achieve. 

It held back its discoveries until they were valuable 
enough to accomplish great and lasting good ; and it now 
opens its doors to the w r hole human race as far as they 
choose to enter. In the present volume the known laws 
and proofs are sent forth into the world in the best and 



244 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

most presentable form ; and, considering the immense ex- 
pense attached to the researches of the past thirty years, 
the price of admission and of the book combined is merely 
nominal. 

It has been ascertained that men and women do not 
all agree on the kind and extent of affiliation which they 
prefer with an organization ; and, to meet with the ex- 
pressed wishes of all classes in the past, there have been 
established three methods of membership. They include: 

1. Reader-Members in the Psychic Society. 

2. Students in the Psychic Society. 

3. Investigators in the Psychic Society. 

Any person who is a member may decide which of these 
three classes he will enter. The whole matter is fully ex- 
plained in the next chapter. 



What is known as the Shaftesbury Society is composed 
©f all persons who are sufficiently interested in the subject 
to become owners of this Book of the Psychic Society. 

The Shaftesbury Society therefore begins and ends with 
this book. 

The difference between the Shaftesbury Society and the 
PSYCHIC SOCIETY is this: The former is confined 
wholly to the use of the present volume; the latter passes 
through the greater works referred to in the next chapter. 

There are no dues or fees in the Shaftesbury Society. 



245 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

PSYCHIC MEMBERS. 

* I 

. • i i.i.i i.i i i 1. 1 . i . i . i . i . i . i , i i i i i i iii i i i i i i.i.i i ui.i/ivi-.r,- 



S HAS BEEN STATED in the preceding 
chapter, there are three kinds of membership 
in the Society. The first is arranged for men 
and women who wish to read all the most 
recent facts and information available on the 
subjects which are included in the work of 
this organization. The second is prepared for 
men and women who have a desire to study, analyze and 
deduct for themselves the great conclusions that must al- 
ways form the basis of true knowledge. The third em- 
braces the much smaller class of men and women who are 
desirous of taking part in running down reports, claims 
and occurrences, for the purpose of determining what the 
real facts are, and to what class of psychic laws they be- 
long. 




READERS IN THE GREAT PSYCHIC SOCIETY. 

Any person of either sex who is over tzventy-one years 
of age, may apply for admission to membership in the pres- 
ent organization as a READER-MEMBER in the Psychic 
Society; and the following conditions are attached to such 
membership : 

1. There are no duties whatever outside the regular 
fees and the obligation to return all books from the Psychic 
System. 

2. Every Reader must follow the Rules for Advance- 



246 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

merit that apply to all members of the Psychic Society. 
When any Advancement has been attained, the Section 
of the Psychic System that belongs to such Advancement 
will be delivered over to the member for three month's 
use. 

3. A section of the Psychic System may be retained 
three full months; after which it must be returned to 
Ralston Company, the owners. 

4. More than one section of the Psychic System may be 
obtained at one time, or before the period expires in which 
some other Section is held by a member, provided the 
proper Advancement has been reached. 

5. The Reader is supposed to be able to receive a com- 
plete understanding of each Section in three months, and 
must not apply for the same unless there is time at com- 
mand to be devoted to such reading. 

6. In order to furnish the basis for determining whether 
or not the Reader will be able to properly grasp the value 
of each Section, the following estimate of the time re- 
quired is made: 

A. The First Section of the Psychic System can be 
read by an ordinarily intelligent person in twenty-five 
hours, which would require less than twenty minutes a 
day if the reading were evenly distributed through the 
three months. 

B. The Second Section of the Psychic System can be 
read in fifty hours, which will take a little over half an 
hour daily for three months. 

C. The Third Section of the Psychic System can be 
read in one hundred hours, which will take a little more 
than one hour daily. 

D. The Fourth Section of the Psychic System can be 
read in two hundred hours, which will take a little over 
two hours daily. 

The fees for membership will be stated later in this 
chapter; but they are not increased by reason of a member 



PSYCHIC MEMBERS 247 

entering into more than one kind of membership. One 
fee covers all kinds. 



STUDENTS IN THE GREAT PSYCHIC SOCIETY. 

Something more than reading is now required. A per- 
son may enjoy the perusal of a book without giving it 
study or deep thought. All the books of the Psychic Sys- 
tem are intensely interesting reading, and have furnished 
many a pleasurable evening even to the ordinary mind. 
They are written for all classes who know how to read. 
The most complicated thoughts and the most technical 
terms are put into such easy language that they will be 
readily grasped and enjoyed by any person. This is the 
secret of the fascinating power of Shaftesbury. His vo- 
cabulary is most rich and abundant, yet most clear and in- 
viting. 

STUDENTS. — The use of this word may not be un- 
derstood, and we will explain it. One would at first sup- 
pose that a student was a young person who is attending 
some institution of learning. But this is a limited con- 
ception. 

All grown persons are students who study, ponder, think 
and seek to know more day by day. 

It is a sad time in the life of any man or woman when 
the love of knowledge ceases. It means the beginning of 
that drowsy mental condition that betokens the coming end. 
As long as life lasts, so long ought every person to study 
some. 

" The man or woman who loves to study never grows 
old," is a wise saying. 

It means that as soon as we do not care to learn more 
of the real knowledge of the world, we fall back in the 
power to think and to understand the important problems 
of existence. We then take up the newspapers for sensa- 



248 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

tions, or the novel for ease, or the light magazine for amuse- 
ment; and decadence sets in. 

The real students are those who have slight use for 
weak literature. The headlines of a newspaper will 
give all the daily history needed in life, and much sewerage 
that is not needed. A party of twenty-seven business men 
who had been absent from America for six months came 
back to their respective places of business and found that 
their clerks had saved all the daily papers during that 
time. They looked them over by glances, saw the matters 
that were written up, and came to the conclusion that they 
had " not missed anything by being away from their daily 
papers for six months." Yet think of the vast waste of 
time that must be charged against the individual who de- 
votes himself to literature that merely interests. 

To be a student all one's life is glorious! 

The mind will remain young. It will remain flexible. 
It will be better qualified, for the genuine duties of this 
world. It will be built on the plan of a nobler and wider 
part in the existence that may be inherited hereafter. 

If you are over twenty-one years of age you can become 
a Student in the Psychic Society, no matter how limited 
or how great may have been your previous education. 

If you are in the twenties, in the thirties, in the forties, 
in the fifties, in the sixties or seventies, it will be grand 
for you to become a student. 

If you decide that you would like such a career, then 
you must have something to study that is worth your at- 
tention and careful thought. To-day it is the consensus 
of opinion among all highly educated people that there is 
one theme that outranks all others in importance, and that 
is the subject of human life in its relations to universal 
life. This line of education is the true basis of all wisdom. 
It includes everything else, on the principle that the greater 
includes the less. There is nothing so great for the student 
mind as the comprehension of human life, for it holds the 



PSYCHIC MEMBERS 249 

center of the stage amidst the unseen powers that hem it in 
on all sides. 

No matter what profession or avocation in life you may 
choose, this knowledge must be the foundation of great 
success. Here is the fountain of wisdom which alone can 
guide men and women through a victorious career. 

UNIFORM SUCCESS IS THE RULE. 

This means that all persons win some form of success in 
life if they draw from the fountain of true wisdom. 

In a large original membership, after thirty years of 
study and enjoyment of their great work, a census was 
taken of our first associates, and to the surprise of every one, 
there had not been a failure in the list. Prosperity in ma- 
terial things had come to all. This is not due to the aid 
of a higher power, although all the gifts of life come from 
that source; but it was ascribable to the keener insight into 
human nature and a better knowledge of the motives of 
humanity, which in themselves are gifts from above. 

We therefore urge every man and woman to become 
Students in the Psychic Society. 

There is no additional expense attached to such rank, as 
a member is a member for any and all purposes. The fees 
cover any one kind of membership, or any two kinds, or all 
three. 

The Student in the Psychic Society is allowed to retain 
the Sections of the Psychic System for a greater length of 
times than the Reader; the schedule being as follows: 

A. The First Section may be retained one year. 

B. The Second Section may be retained one year. 

C. The Third Section may be retained two years. 

D. The Fourth Section may be retained five years. It 
is so comprehensive that a person can look into its pages 
every day for that length of time and find new ideas with 
every perusal. You can turn to any page by accident and 



250 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

open up a train of facts that will hold you by its intense 
interest and importance. 

These Sections are obtainable under the Rules of Ad- 
vancement as stated in a later part of this chapter. 



INVESTIGATORS IN THE GREAT PSYCHIC SOCIETY. 

It is a fair estimate to say that in the civilized world on 
each and every day there are no less than five hundred re- 
ported cases of phenomena that the public look upon as be- 
ing due to supernatural influences; or more than one thou- 
sand such cases every two days. This does not include " re- 
markable instances " of thought transference ; as the num- 
ber of the latter are beyond all computation. 

It is not pretended that any one society can investigate 
such a mass of reports. The English Society for Psychical 
Research, or its great branch in this country, does not as- 
sume to look up an average of one case a day. Our or- 
ganization has done better than that however, as we are not 
held back by the machinery of red tape. In order to make 
clear the best method for procedure, the following rules 
and duties are assigned to all persons who wish to become 
Investigators in the Psychic Society: 



RULES FOR INVESTIGATORS. 

Rule li — Any person who is either a Reader or a 
Student in the Psychic Society may become an Investiga- 
tor on making application, and his or her name will be so 
recorded. 

Rule 2. — Every Investigator will be furnished with 
printed blanks and private instructions prepared for the 
purpose of carrying on all research with the largest possible 
chance for success. It must be understood at the start 



PSYCHIC MEMBERS 251 

that these blanks and instructions are private, and all steps 
to be taken must be so regarded ; for the reason that it is a 
very difficult matter to secure testimony when the party 
testifying understands that the account is likely to be pub- 
lished. The very class of people whose statements are most 
reliable are those who do not wish to rush into public print 
or be mentioned by name in any book, periodical or report. 
Therefore all Investigators must act in an individual ca- 
pacity, and not in the name of any organization. 

Rule 3. — Every Investigator must report to the Psychic 
Society the outline facts of any remarkable or unusual oc- 
currence, if such has happened in his or her immediate lo- 
cality. 

Rule 4. — When there is a seemingly reliable account 
in any paper or letter of an unusual occurrence that the 
ordinary mind may attribute to supernatural influence, the 
Investigator must write for information to the parties whose 
names may be mentioned, asking if there is any basis of 
truth in such account. If the reply indicates that it is a 
genuine case and worthy of further inquiry, then the In- 
vestigator must call our attention to the matter. 

Rule 5. — No report must be made on hearsay evidence, 
nor on probabilities. If the party having actual knowledge 
of an event cannot be reached after all efforts to do so have 
been exhausted, then the whole case must be dropped. 

Rule 6. — When the party having actual knowledge of 
an event gives evidence of the details as they occurred, steps 
must be taken to ascertain what degree of credibility can be 
attached to his statements, to what extent he may labor 
under a mistake, his nervous condition, his general health, 
and any other circumstances that may bear upon the gen- 
uineness of the account. When there seems to be a solid 
foundation for a truthful and important case, the Investi- 
gator is to turn all the evidence over to the Psychic So- 
ciety for further sifting. 

Rule 7. — As many facts have already been proved, the 



252 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

lines of further research should be confined to matters that 
are not set forth in this Book of the Psychic Society as es- 
tablished beyond all doubt. We will not go over ground 
that has yielded a series of conclusions about which there is 
no doubt at the present day. Therefore the Investigator 
should be perfectly familiar with the scope of this volume. 
In it he will find several exceedingly important points about 
which we desire more light. 

Rule 8. — No Investigator will be asked to contribute 
any money for the general work of the Society ; his only ex- 
pense being the fees that are charged to all members. But 
he is not authorized to put the Psychic Society to any cost 
unless he has a written contract signed by Ralston Com- 
pany of Washington, D. C, agreeing to pay him, and 
stating explicitly the nature of the charges and the sums to 
be paid. In the absence of such written contract it is un- 
derstood that all Investigators are to bear their own ex- 
penses for hunting down cases. This has been the rule for 
thirty years, and is the only equitable method of proceeding. 



COST OF MEMBERSHIP. 



The present volume is sold at the uniform price of two 
dollars a copy. The amount is very small considering the 
unusual value in its contents. In the opinion of many who 
have seen the advance prints, it is worth much more than 
two dollars. 

This book is the gateway to membership. 

That is, any person who owns a copy of the book may ap- 
ply for admission into the Psychic Society, by sending the 
proper notice of such act to Ralston Company, Washington, 
D. C. The book is published by Ralston Company, and 
all the business interests are transacted b)^ that company. 
It has also for many years published the several Sections of 
the Psychic System, and has attended to their interests. 



PSYCHIC MEMBERS 253 

NOTICE OF MEMBERSHIP. 

The following notice is to be copied and forwarded as 
soon as you have decided to apply for membership in the 
Psychic Society: 

To Ralston Company, 

1327 to 1329 Fifteenth St., Washington, D. C. 
Please take notice that I have decided to become a mem- 
ber of the Great Psychic Society. I will pay my dues in 
the manner stated in the rules therefor. My full name 
and address are as follows: 



The above notice should be copied, and not torn from the 
book, and should be sent to the address stated above. 



RULES FOR PAYMENT OF DUES. 

i. Membership cannot be extended for more than ten 
years, for the reasons stated in a later chapter. 

2. The dues are six dollars a year, which may be paid in 
advance for one or more years at a time, or one dollar every 
two months, or fifty cents a month. 

3. As the dues are paid receipts are given therefor, and 
these receipts mark the advancement of each member. 

4. Owing to the importance of the time when member- 
ship expires in each case, the receipt shows the date of the 
same, and this fact must always be borne in mind. 

5. The full fees for the ten years are sixty dollars, and 
these may all be paid in advance under the Rules for Ad- 
vancement. 



NOTICE. — A Reader in the Psychic Society is techni- 
cally known as a Reader-Member to distinguish from 
Readers as stated on page 7 of this book. 



254 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

As the right of a member to take the various Sections 
of the Psychic System to read or study, depends on the pay- 
ments made, the matter has been adjusted by establishing 
the following 

RULES FOR ADVANCEMENT. 

1. The First Advancement is made when the full dues 
for the first year have been paid. 

2. The Second Advancement is made when the full dues 
for the second year have been paid. 

3. The Third Advancement is made when the dues for 
the fifth year have been paid. 

4. The Fourth Advancement is made when the dues for 
the tenth or final year have been paid. 

5. The dues can be paid as far in advance as the mem- 
ber wishes. Many will undoubtedly pay the full ten years 
at once, as they receive then all the Four Sections which 
comprise the Psychic System. 

6. The selling value of the Four Sections at the lowest 
wholesale price is much more than the ten years' dues ; so 
that the members are being favored by the concession. 

7. But the Sections are loaned to members and are not 
to be kept by them beyond the time stated in the first part 
of this chapter. 

8. In order to become owners in full title of the Sections 
of the Psychic System, the following method must be 
adopted. 

9. Every Reader who has been brought into the Shaftes- 
bury Psychic Society by the influence of a member, will be 
counted as equal to the payment of four months' dues; and 
three Readers so brought in take the place of the payment 
of a whole year's dues. Thirty Readers will save you the 
payment of the whole ten years' dues. It is a very easy 
matter to secure thirty Readers by the use of the Invita- 
tions which we furnish freely to all actual members. 

10. If the first year's dues have been paid for by new 



PSYCHIC MEMBERS 255 

Readers, then the member so credited will be allowed to own 
the First Section, and if new works or editions are pub- 
lished at any time in that Section, free copies will be fur- 
nished to such member for actual ownership. The same 
rule applies to the second year, in case it is paid for by new 
Readers ; the Second Section being allowed in full owner- 
ship, and all subsequent publications and editions in that 
Section will be presented free of cost to such member. 
Likewise the same rule applies to the remaining sections. 
The advantages of this method are extraordinary and should 
be appreciated by every member. 

11. The total dues cannot exceed sixty dollars, and they 
cover all cost of the Sections. Thus the payment of the first 
five years' dues will give the right to the first three Sections 
for the purpose of reading or study; while the full pay- 
ment of the ten years' dues will give the right to all four 
Sections. But the years must be paid for in their regular 
order. 

12. Any member who has paid the ten years' dues all in 
advance is allowed to take at once all four Sections, and is 
also given a check good for the value of sixty dollars in 
copies of the Book of the Psychic Society, provided such 
copies are to be used for the purpose of obtaining new 
Readers. The copies can be drawn from time to time as 
new Readers may be found. This affords to each member 
the opportunity to secure the ten years' membership free of 
cost, and also gives absolute title and possession to the four 
Sections of the Psychic System. 

13. A Reader in the Shaftesbury Psychic Society is any 
person who actually owns and retains for personal use a 
copy of the Book of the Psychic Society. The word is thus 
used in a limited sense. The cost is two dollars, which is 
the regular price for the book alone, and there is no obliga- 
tion on the part of the new recruit to become a member. 

14. A gigantic Section is being prepared for the purpose 
of presenting the laws, processes and facts of Psychic 



256 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

Telepathy. Owing to the enormous expense attached to its 
preparation it will not be printed unless there is a wide- 
spread interest in this work. But in case it is ever pub- 
lished, it will be presented to all full paid members without 
cost, although it is a Section that is worth at least one hun- 
dred dollars. A full description of the undertaking is given 
in the latter part of this book. 

15. It is the purpose of the Society to bring all the facts, 
all the new discoveries, and all the advantages in its power 
to each and every member ; and there is a fixed determination 
that the dues shall not exceed the stated sum, no matter 
how many new systems may be put forth. 

This plan protects every member. 



Considering the enormous expense to which the Society 
has been already put, and the fact that its work is being 
laid before the public without reservation, the dues that 
are charged in the foregoing rules are moderate ; but they 
are made to include the right to use or to own the great 
Sections that have a total value in excess of the dues 
charged for the whole ten years of membership ; and they 
entitle each member to the following advantages: 

1. To become a Member of the Great Psychic Society. 

2. To hold that Membership for the full period. 

3. To become also a Reader, or a Student, or an Investi- 
gator, or all of these, in the Great Psychic Society. 

4. To get direct and immediate information when any 
new laws or new facts have been discovered. This advan- 
tages of itself is worth many times the whole ten years' dues 
to any person whose mind is progressive, and who seeks the 
only wisdom that brings true value in life. 

5. To have the use or ownership of the Sections which 
are more valuable and sell for a higher cash price than the 
total ten years' dues. 

6. To have possession of the immense Section in case it 



PSYCHIC MEMBERS 257 

is published, under the provisions of Rule 14, in the Rules 
for Advancement. 

7. To have the use or ownership of all new and enlarged 
editions of any and every work included in the foregoing 
advantages. This saves the necessity of buying new books 
all the time as progress and discovery are being made. 

8. The dues also include the right to local Temples, as 
wlil be stated in the subsequent pages of this book. 



What is referred to in the book of physical telepatny in 
the 1896 edition, as the S. P. S., was then and has ever 
since been known as the Shaftesbury Psychic Society. It 
included only the persons who read the one most popular 
book on the subject. It is now to be extended to include 
every man or woman who owns in his or her exclusive right 
a copy of the Book of the Psychic Society, which is the vol- 
ume now before you. 

As every such person must peruse the contents of a book 
and thereby get knowledge of what it is about, before 
deciding what further steps are desirable, it is arranged 
that this volume may be purchased by any person who 
wishes it, and that no obligations of any kind shall arise 
because of such purchase. 

In order to recognize all who become owners of the 
present volume, they are called 

READERS IN THE SHAFTESBURY SOCIETY. 

This means that they own for the purpose of reading only, 
a copy of the Book of the Psychic Society. They receive 
for the price paid, which is two dollars, a volume that is 
easily worth much more, and the value of which is con- 
ceded by those familiar with it as much greater than two 
dollars. 
17 



258 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

New recruits therefore first become Readers in the Shaftes- 
bury Society. 

This is the first step. 

The second step is to become a member for the period of 
ten years of the Great Psychic Society, the work of which is 
fully described in the present chapter. 

The third and final step is to decide whether you wish 
to become a Reader, a Student, or an Investigator in the 
Psychic Society, as explained under the various rules of this 
chapter which is now brought to an end. When you have 
determined which of these three methods you will adopt, 
you should send a copy of the following notice to Ralston 
Company : 



" To Ralston Company, 

1327 to 1329 Fifteenth St., 
Washington, D. C. 

" I own in my exclusive right a copy of the Book of the 
Psychic Society, and have read not less than three times all 
the rules and explanations of Chapter ^7 °f sa ^ volume. 

I have finally decided to become a in the Psychic 

Society. (State whether Reader, Student, or Investigator.) 
My name and full address are as follows" 



Do not remove the above from the book, but copy it, and 
mail the envelope plainly to Ralston Company, 1327 to 1329 
Fifteenth St., Washington, D. C. 



259 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

9 

THE GREAT SECTIONS. | 



EFERENCE to the rules and explanations of 
the preceding chapter will disclose the fact that 
four great Sections are set forth under the 
plan of Advancement. These Sections are each 
represented by a single volume or book, cover- 
ing a certain amount of training, reading and 
discussion of the grandest themes in human 
life. They are called Sections for two reasons: 

1. They mark a fixed stage of progress along the highway 
of knowledge of the unseen powers that surround humanity. 

2. They include the right to use or own all subsequent 
editions, additions, reports or discoveries that may be made 
or published from time to time in the particular Section to 
which they belong. 




THE FIRST GREAT SECTION. 

This has passed through a number of editions, under the 
name of physical telepathy, or similar titles, the latest and 
most advanced transference of thought and described as a 
scientific demonstration of its existence, and the laws and 
methods of its operation. The second edition under that 
title was published in 1896, and its final pages are devoted 
to an explanation of the S. P. S. Whoever receives a copy 
of that volume must bear in mind the following facts: 

1. The Statements and forms on pages 8 and 9 are not 
now in use, for the reason that the former organization 



260 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

ceases its phase of existence with the publication of the Book 
of the Psychic Society. 

2. All of chapter 62 and all of chapter 63 are now out 
of use, as they have served their purposes and no longer 
belong to the plan that is now coming into vogue. There 
are now no degrees, as Ralston Clan, which is a much 
stronger organization in point of numbers, having an im- 
mense membership all over the globe, has taken into itself 
the entire degree system. 

3. The appeal to members made in 1896, or more than 
eleven years ago, asking for reports and investigations into 
all important cases of the influence of the unseen powers, is 
no longer being acted upon ; for there has been a steady 
response to that appeal during these eleven years, and the 
thousands of cases that have been investigated have added 
a tremendous amount of information to the proved knowl- 
edge already in possession of the Psychic Society. 

4. The S. P. S., as it will be seen, was devoted almost 
exclusively to the study of physical telepathy ; hence its scope 
was somewhat limited when compared with the greater field 
of labor and research which is unfolded to the vision in the 
other great Sections. 

The ground covered in the First Section may be under- 
stood when we recite the heads of the chapters : 

Chapter 1, "Facts Alone Have Value." — Chapter 2, 
" Proof of Thought Transference." — Chapter 3, " Thought 
is a Force." — Chapter 4, " How Thought Operates." — 
Chapter 5, " A Thought in Transit." — Chapter 6, " Phys- 
ical Action of the Brain While Thinking." — Chapter 7, 
" Biology of the Brain." — Chapter 8, " A Look Through 
the Brain." — Chapter 9, " A Thought Under a Micro- 
scope." — Chapter 10, "Brain Impressions." — Chapter 11, 
"Ordinary Thought Transference." — Chapter 12, "Nat- 
ural Transmission." — Chapter 13, "Simple Methods of 
Catching Thoughts." — Chapter 14, "Hearing Words Not 
Uttered." — Chapter 15, "Transference of Objects." — 



THE GREAT SECTIONS 261 

Chapter 16, " How Sight is Transmitted in Thought." — 
Chapter 17, " Somnambulism." — Chapter 18, " Dreams and 
Sleeping Thoughts." — Chapter 19, "Communication by 
Dreams." — Chapter 20, "Visions in Sleep." — Chapter 21, 
" Inspired Visitations." — Chapter 22, " Visions in Delir- 
ium." — Chapter 23, " Impressions." — - Chapter 24, " Pre- 
sentiments." — Chapter 25, " Clairvoyance Explained." — 
Chapter 26, " The Sub-conscious Mind." — Chapter 27, " Is 
there a Second Mind? " — Chapter 28, " Ideas Caught from 
By-Standers." — Chapter 29, " Assisted Thinking." — Chap- 
ter 30, " Suspicions." — Chapter 31, " How Errors Occur." 

— Chapter 32, " Success of the Great Detectives." — Chap- 
ter ^^, "Conscience and Confession." — Chapter 34, "Ex- 
planation of Haunted Houses." — Chapter 35, " Are the 
Dead Conscious?" — Chapter 36, "Crowded Thoughts in 
Moments of Great Danger." — Chapter 37, " The Study 
and Practice of Thought Transference." — Chapter 38, 
" Avenues of Approach." — Chapter 39, " Mind Reading." 

— Chapter 40, " Muscle Reading." — Chapter 41, " Regime 
of the Physical Brain." — Chapter 42, "Adjusting the Tem- 
perament." — Chapter 43, " Influence of Magnetism." — 
Chapter 44, " Regime of the Mental Brain." — Chapter 45, 
" Habits of Action." — Chapter 46, " Easy Steps in Prac- 
tice." — Chapter 47, " Anticipating the Thoughts of Oth- 
ers." — Chapter 48, " Restoring Lost Thoughts." — Chapter 
49, " Absorption of Thought." — Chapter 50, " Analysis of 
a Thought in Progress." — Chapter 51, "Relation of Lip 
Reading." — Chapter 52, " Relation of Facial Expression." — 
Chapter 53, " Creation of Mental Apparitions." — Chapter 
54, " Absolute Clearness of the Mind." — Chapter 55, 
" Code of Thought Reading." — Chapter 56, " Exercises and 
Experiments for Private Practice." — Chapter 57, " How to 
Instruct a class in Thought Transference." — Chapter 58, 
" Transmission in Presence." — Chapter 59, " Transmissions 
at a Distance." — Chapter 60, " Explanation of a Person Ap- 
pearing in Two Places at the Same Time." — Chapter 61, 



262 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

" Thought Transference a Natural Operation of the 
Mind." 

The remaining chapters are devoted to the S. P. S., or 
Shaftesbury Psychic Society, and the urgent appeal to mem- 
bers to report cases for investigation ; and they have been 
mentioned in the first part of this chapter. 

It will be noticed that the title of Chapter 55 is the 
" Code of Thought Reading." There are forty-three fixed 
laws set forth in that chapter. We refer to this part of the 
book in order to say that the author, Shaftesbury, has had 
thousands of letters from the most learned men and women 
in the civilized world expressing their opinion that those 
forty-three laws are worth alone many times the price of the 
book, which is five dollars. One man who was a professor 
in one of the great universities, had the forty-three laws 
engrossed on parchment and framed where he could read 
them every day of his life. Another man who has himself 
become famous in other walks in life, both here and abroad, 
writes of that chapter: " It is to me the most potent presen- 
tation of facts and principles that ever came from the pen of 
a human being." 



Enough has been said of the First Section. 

The foregoing account of it should be read in connection 
with the rules and explanations of the preceding chapter in 
this book. 



THE SECOND GREAT SECTION. 

This comes at the Second Advancement, as stated in the 
preceding chapter, which should be read very carefully sev- 
eral times to be thoroughly understood. 

As will be noticed, the First Section relates to physical 
telepathy and its connection with all other avenues of knowl- 
edge. 



THE GREAT SECTIONS 263 

A few definitions will be of service at this place. 

First Definition. — Telepathy is knowledge passing 
through the agency of some unseen power. 

Second Definition. — Magnetism weaves the network 
of communication and impels the forces of control. 

Third Definition. — Physical Telepathy is knowledge 
of physical affairs, including the thoughts in the physical 
brain of each and every human being, and the transactions 
past and present in which human beings have engaged. 

Fourth Definition. — Psychic Telepathy is knowledge 
of the unseen powers themselves, including thoughts in the 
psychic brain of each and every person on earth, and a large 
and constantly increasing knowledge of life in other worlds. 

Fifth Definition. — As Telepathy takes on wider and 
higher powers, so must magnetism be cultivated in order to 
weave the net-work of communication and impel the forces 
of control. 

Magnetism builds the track and carries the message. 

Telepathy is the message. 



Having set forth in brief space the outline of the Psychic 
System of Four Great Sections, and having described the 
First Section, we might proceed to spread out full informa- 
tion of the other Sections. Time and space will not permit. 
All we can say is that the work grows grander and more 
wonderful as it proceeds. 

The Second Section is devoted to the Cultivation of Mag- 
netism, but along physical lines as a companion to the First 
Section, or one that should follow it for logical strength of 
position. 

The Section now embraces the work known as the book 
of the Magnetism Club which consists of readers of that 
system and followers who seek to " exemplify in public and 
private life the principles of personal power." 

It is now a proved fact that every man and woman can 
develop magnetism and increase every phase of individual 



264 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

power in the world. There are over 600,000 followers en- 
rolled in this study in all parts of the world. To show 
what the position is that the system occupies in scientific 
circles, a man of international reputation and of great per- 
sonal magnetism was asked by a fellow member of an im- 
portant medical association if he would recommend the prac- 
tice of magnetism in the hope of succeeding in it, and re- 
plied : " I know of one really great and intensely interest- 
ing as well as supremely valuable work on the subject, and 
that is Shaftesbury's. That one work outclasses all others 
in existence, and is the only reliable method to be had. I 
can also say that Shaftesbury is always reliable in his other 
works. I believe that every man should secure all the books 
by Shaftesbury because of two facts : First, they cover more 
new ground than others. Second, they clear away all doubts 
and stand all tests as to accuracy." 

A publishing house giving the list of works extant on the 
vital subjects of this age, refers to Shaftesbury's magnetism 
volumes as " pre-eminently the authoritative systems." 

In attempting to describe the Second Section, all we can 
say is that it is far more comprehensive in its scope along the 
lines of magnetic cultivation than all other works of the kind 
in the world put together. 

It is even a greater work than the First Section which has 
been given some space in this chapter in order to make you 
familiar with it. 

It has attracted more followers than any other Shaftes- 
bury work. 



THE THIRD GREAT SECTION. 



This is known as advanced magnetism. It is the latest of 
all the studies in this line, and deals with the subject in a 
way that is most beautiful and inspiring. While the Second 
Section teaches the cultivation of magnetism and its develop- 



THE GREAT SECTIONS 265 

ment in the highest degree, the Third Section teaches the 
uses of this power. One great work may develop the most 
effective of all gifts ; yet it might require a library of a thou- 
sand books to explain and teach all its uses, for magnetism 
is as broad as life itself. 

The Second Section is open and public. The Third Sec- 
tion teaches certain methods that cannot be made public ; 
for, if the general masses were to know them, they would 
prove most injurious and dangerous. If you give an igno- 
rant man ideas that he only half understands, he becomes the 
enemy of society at once if he is so disposed. It is an old 
saying that " a little knowledge is harmful.' But there are 
other reasons why the Third Section should not be made 
public property, and they are stated in the book itself. 

While the title of this Section is advanced magnetism, it 
is the first and only blending of telepathy and magnetism 
ever undertaken, and the verdict of the many students of 
the work is that the results are most surprising, and always 
agreeably so; for advantages and information that have never 
before accrued to any person, attend the use of this Section. 

It is a much larger, more comprehensive and far deeper 
in its power than either of the two preceding Sections. We 
have not the space to adequately describe it ; but if you will 
read all that is stated under the First Section in this chapter, 
and then multiply that by many times, you will have an idea 
of the greatness of the Third Section. Its regular selling 
price was twenty-five dollars until very recently. 



THE FOURTH GREAT SECTION. 

This of course is the grandest of all the works ever pub- 
lished on this or any theme. It has no equal and never will, 
until the still more magnificent work of Psychic Telepathy 
is issued. The Fourth Section deals with universal magnet- 
ism. 



266 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

A whole chapter has already been devoted to this work, 
and some idea of its meaning and value may be gathered by 
reading chapter nineteen. It will be seen that, while physical 
magnetism such as is taught in the Second Section weaves 
the network of communication and control among human- 
ity, universal magnetism weaves the network of communica- 
tion and impels the forces of control between the psychic 
mind of an individual and every psychic form of existence on 
earth and in the whole universe. 

All life is a general fund, the parts of which are held 
together or kept apart by magnetism. 

The language of the universe is magnetism. 

On earth language is in vowels and consonants; and they 
are most unstable in their combinations. There are as many 
tongues as there are peoples, and as many dialects as there 
are localities. The words that we know and utter here are 
not the words that are spoken and understood in the psychic 
world. Music has a universal basis and may be the founda- 
tion of a general language of a higher form of humanity; 
but in the psychic brain there can be no other universal 
language than magnetism with its complex divisions. 

" Every pulsing thought in heaven or earth, in planet, sun 
or satellite, can be translated by the laws of universal mag- 
netism." 

Physical magnetism is taught in the Second Section, as 
has been stated; and it imparts control over humanity 
through the physical division of every man and woman. 
Universal magnetism reaches more direct results, owing to its 
relation to the psychic life of every individual. 

It is a complete education in itself. 

This Course, or its equivalent, is necessary in every suc- 
cessful life. If you seek its equivalent you must endure 
many years of waiting in the midst of ups and downs and 
hard knocks from the hand of fortune, for experience is a 
cruel teacher. " You have given me in a short time what I 
have been trying to secure in ten years of struggle," said a 



THE GREAT SECTIONS. 267 

business man who has risen to great success through the 
teachings of Universal Magnetism. 

This is the greatest of all works except Psychic Telepathy, 
and is designed to afford help to those who persist in going 
into the study with a determination to master all known 
laws. Those who wish only general training, are content 
with the first course in magnetism, but there are always 
men and women who wish to sound the greatest depths of 
human power; and for them this system is provided. 

It is always inspiring. 

A famous lawyer answered one question which was asked 
him by a business man who needed information very much 
indeed. It took five seconds to answer the question; the fee 
charged was fifty dollars and was gladly paid. It saved 
the business man a loss of more than two hundred thousand 
dollars. 

But the great course of Universal Magnetism answers 
countless questions and covers the greatest range of intensely 
valuable information that has ever been put together in one 
system. It is constructed in Ten Magnificent Realms, and in 
Ten Stupendous Estates with Special Powers. 

1. It is by far the largest system ever published, and the 
most comprehensive work of the kind in existence. 

2. It stands alone in its line of information and training. 
There is no book like it, nor any book that in any way ap- 
proaches it in the class of matter with which it deals. 

3. The book is in itself magnetic. It is written in the 
most magnetic vein of the greatest living exponent of 
magnetism. It is the product of the most successful teacher 
of this subtle yet scientific power. 

4. So great is the magnetic influence of the book in its 
teachings and principles that to read it is to begin to grasp 
the very power it exerts; just as the influence of a grand 
thought or the thrill of a noble impulse uplifts all those 
whom it reaches. 

5. It is not a book of exercises; but a guiding teacher, 



268 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

an inspiring adviser, and an unceasing helper to all who feel 
the need of more power in the world. 

6. It lays bare all the weaknesses of men and women, 
and shows how to rise above them, and to build in strength. 
As a great banker, who paid fifty dollars for the book and 
afterwards bought four more copies for two hundred dollars 
in cash, said: " I read the wonderful book through before 
studying its teachings, and that first reading showed me 
conclusively the only course that lay open to me to make life 
a success. / turned completely about at once. I mean by 
this statement that the book can reform any human life by 
reading it. But to practice its splendid principles and adopt 
its exalted teachings, is sure to uplift any man or woman." 

It is the grandest system ever published. 

7. So vast is the scope covered by its Realms and Estates 
that it becomes a daily companion for life. The same pages 
can be re-read hundreds of times, and more and more help 
be obtained from them. No other product of the human 
mind has ever been able to do this. It will exist as long as 
literature endures, and no word of it has ever been changed. 
Many judges have expressed the opinion that this wonderful 
book, with its inexhaustible source of power, will outlive all 
works of man for the reason that it wields the most tre- 
mendous influence of any agency over human life, and its 
principles give forth multiplied powers in proportion as they 
are used in human conduct. 

8. It appeals to the most intelligent and the most sensi- 
ble of men and women. It is in the private possession of 
many great personages, and its constantly increasing sale is 
due to the fact that the most conservative minds throughout 
the world advise friends and relatives to secure the book and 
begin its use as soon as possible. The price of fifty dollars 
deters no one who knows what the book contains. One of 
the leading publishing houses has made a small fortune selling 
this book all over the globe, and never less than fifty dollars 
a copy, and that concern buys the book at wholesale, paying 



THE GREAT SECTIONS 269 

a very high cash price to us for the system and constantly 
increasing; its demand. 



(by shaftesbury) 

A review of chapter twenty of this book will give you an 
idea of what is meant by psychic telepathy. It is not only 
knowledge, but is a branch of knowledge of which the world 
is either ignorant or in whose waters the mind is a drifting 
ship without mooring or port. To gain such wisdom, all 
the centuries have been raked and threshed over, with only 
vain failure. Men and women have guessed at it, have 
theorized over it, have invented and built up new theologies 
about it, but still the ship floats and drifts with no helm and 
no sails. 

Let us have a better understanding of what is meant by 
the term psychic telepathy. 

Definition : — The word " psychic " as now applied re- 
fers to powers that are unseen. 

Definition : — The word " telepathy " as noiv applied re- 
lates to knowledge that comes through powers unseen. 

That there are powers unseen every human being who has 
arrived at the age of discretion knows full well. The very 
fact that an apple falls, indicates that it is affected by some 
unseen power. No one denies the wonderful and highly 
intelligent force of instinct that is supplied to all kinds of 
lower animal life because they are not able to find out things 
for themselves in time to save them from annihilation. 

These are very familiar unseen powers. 

If so remarkable an unseen power as instinct can be cre- 
ated for the purpose of aiding the beasts and birds, it is not 
at all surprising that a higher urtseen power should be fur- 
nished the human race which is the most important of all 
earthly creation. 



270 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

LAW. — Every world in the sky is made of the same ma- 
terial of which the earth is composed. 

This law has been well established by the aid of instru- 
ments in the hands of astronomers and other scientists. 

If this planet is part of the general fund of substance that 
exists in the sky, there is a close relationship between our 
world and all other worlds. In addition to the discoveries 
from practical investigations on the part of astronomers and 
others, the same law and fact are verified by the aid of 
psychic telepathy. 

There is life on other worlds. 

There is a central court of heaven. 

There is a government in heaven. 

This earth is a dumping ground for the outcasts of 
heaven. 

This earth has been set aside for the purposes of these 
outcasts, and given laws and material of a kind that will 
enable the demon spirits that surround the world to be born, 
to have free choice of their fate, and to escape from the leash 
of this condition so that they may get back to heaven from 
which they fell. 

These facts are all proved by psychic telepathy. 

Knowledge of the demon life, knowledge of heaven, knowl- 
edge of the beings and their occupations in the countless bil- 
lions of worlds that roll in space, and a close bond of thought 
and feeling between them and humanity, are taught by 
psychic telepathy. 

For all this have men and women striven for endless 
centuries. 

The way has been dark all along the journey; yet the 
light has shone into the psychic brain, only to be shut off by 
the almost impenetrable barrier of the mind. 

That there has been a constant effort on the part of the 
unseen powers to break through this barrier, is shown in 
chapter eleven of this book. 

The great work of psychic telepathy is advancing all the 



THE GREAT SECTIONS 271 

while. The facts are becoming more and more numerous 
and of stupendous importance at every stage. 

As the offer of salvation is not made conditional on any 
high educational attainment, so the light that breaks through 
psychic telepathy is visible to all men and women who seek 
it. It is not a gift set aside for a privileged few. The way 
is open to all humanity. 

Every law and fact that has been set forth in this book 
is provable and has been thoroughly proved and tested. 
For this reason the volume should be read many times. The 
plan, the spirit, the power of the influence that has impelled 
it into existence, and the high goal that attracts all thought- 
ful persons, ought to be well understood. 

On no subject has there been so much speculation since 
first the world began. It has been the leaven that has gone 
into every religion. To-day where there is more religious 
unrest than ever before because of the feeling that the old 
systems are tottering, the wicked hand of charlantry takes 
advantage of the breach and rushes in with falsehood and 
trickery. 

At such a time all minds should seek a safe path across the 
trackless ocean of time. 

Some method should be adopted that will clear the mind 
of the rubbish of cobweb beliefs. 

Some power should be appealed to that will make the new 
way seem to be the right way to every man and woman whose 
vision has been clouded by the dust that false doctrines and 
fraudulent practices have fostered in the mind and soul that 
yearn for the truth. 

This book now being brought near its close contains the 
truth. 

If you will read it many times, you will get the light that 
shows the road to proved facts and proved laws, and the 
truth will come to you as clear as the sunlight that floods the 
mountain top. 



272 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

A POSSIBLE NEW SECTION. 

Many persons who are familiar with the wide range and 
immense breadth and size of the possible Section known as 
Psychic Telepathy, have advised the raising of a large fund 
in order to bring the whole plan together so that it may be 
published. But the experience of the grand work of Uni- 
versal Magnetism, referred to in this chapter, deters the 
publishers. That work has never sold for less than fifty 
dollars in cash, and the patronage has been very liberal; 
yet the first cost involved so much expense that it has never 
been made good, despite the fact that Universal Magnetism 
has reached its seventh edition. The printing and the mate- 
rial of paper and cloth, are but a trifle compared with the 
cost of securing the facts in a well proved condition so that 
they can be of use to the world. 

If the still grander work, Psychic Telepathy, shall be pub- 
lished, the expense will be so much greater in bringing thou- 
sands of details to a solid system, that the price of the Section 
must be made not less than fifty dollars and possibly much 
higher. On this subject, Shaftesbury writes as follows: 

" I will not consent to the publication of another high 
priced work. The general public cannot afford it, and it is 
the general public who should be most benefited by it. The 
Psychic Society ought to devise some way of bringing the 
advantages of Psychic Telepathy to all its members, and 
avoid the necessity of placing a prohibitive price on a work 
with no other excuse than that the cost of producing it com- 
pels such charge." 

All that can be done in this: 

It is the belief that this Book of the Psychic Society is the 
most important and valuable of the popular priced systems 
now before the world. 

Every man or woman who reads and re-reads many times 
this book of basic laws, will see a new light with each read- 
ing, and the mind will grow- into a firm knowledge of the 



THE GREAT SECTIONS 273 

facts concerning the unseen powers that surround humanity. 
These facts are: 

1. The end of superstition. 

2. The end of doubt. 

3. The end of fear. 

4. The end of theory. 

5. The end of all unsound tendencies of thought and 
action in life. 

6. The beginning of a career of greater usefulness on 
earth. 

Ignorance of what this world is, and what it means, has 
held humanity down. 

There can be no health of body where there is a morbid 
trend of the mind. Error is almost universal. 

Never in the whole history of the world were there so 
many misleading and distracting beliefs and vagaries as exist 
at the present day. The higher the mind of civilization 
climbs, the more determined it is to secure knowledge and 
facts concerning the unseen powers that control the human 
race; and, in its eagerness for light, it grasps at everything 
that is offered it by charlatans and theorists; and thus the 
hand of progress is set back a thouand years in this very era 
when it is about to emerge from its bondage. 

All that is needed is the truth. 

This Book of the Psychic Society brings the truth for the 
first time in the history of the world. 

For these reasons it seems to us and to all our friends that 
it is the imperative duty of every man and woman who 
has the least influence among others, to bring this book 
to them, to let the light of its truth come into other 
lives and so do a vast amount of good in the world. 

Among those who have had advance access to its facts and 
laws, there is a complete unanimity of opinion that the Book 
of the Psychic Society is the one great work for all 
mankind. 

If you must select one book only out of a thousand, or 
18 



274 T HE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

out of ten thousand, or out of a million, THIS is of neces- 
sity THAT BOOK. 

Therefore go to work and bring new recruits into 
this Society. You cannot find any theme grander, or any 
assistance more noble than that which is brought to other 
lives in this great volume. 

If a widespread interest can be awakened in the Psychic 
Society, then the misery of the world will pass away under 
the power of its teachings. A new earth will be born. 

In order to amply reward those who shall from now on 
take an interest in spreading the influence of the Psychic 
Society, they will be presented from the hand of Shaftes- 
bury with the immense system of Psychic Telepathy that this 
Society will publish as soon as this cause shall take on a 
decided growth so as to warrant the gigantic expenditure. 

The logic of the situation is plain : 

1. The Book of the Psychic Society, the price of which is 
only two dollars, brings the most important information and 
help that can come to any human being. 

2. If it is introduced into many homes and many lives, the 
results will be such a new birth of blessings that all the 
earth will blossom in beauty and splendor. 

3. Since it is the most important of all systems now in 
the world, it is the duty of every man and woman to scatter 
its truths broadcast throughout all civilized lands and 
among all peoples. 



275 



CHAPTER XXXIX 




^:-r:-:-:T:~:T:^-!-;r!-:r:~:-r:r:~;-:-:r!":-!~:~:-:-^:-:r!-:-:-:-:^;-:-!T!-!~!-:t 
PSYCHIC TEMPLES. | 



HEREVER two or more persons are brought 
into a new light, there comes the desire to tell 
it to each other, and to compare experiences. 
For this purpose it is necessary that local or- 
ps s ganizations of a great movement should be 
established when members desire them. The 
Psychic Society is to be henceforth the liter- 
ary name of this cause, and Psychic Temples are to be the 
names of the bands of followers that come together in each 
and every community throughout the world. 
A Temple may be a building or a society. 
The word temple has had many meanings in the past 
centuries. In the olden era it meant a place of sacred meet- 
ing either for a few or for the public. In the best centuries 
of Greece and Rome it referred to buildings devoted to 
the worship of various deities. In modern times it still 
has different meanings. The Middle and the Inner 
Temples of England are the names of two societies of law- 
yers of barristers. An inn of court is also called a temple. 
The buildings formerly occupied by the Knights Templars 
were called temples. Likewise the word refers to the 
human body itself, as is shown in all literature during 
many centuries. A part of the brain or head is also called 
the temple. 

There are but four foundation rules for organizing a 
Psychic Temple: 

I. Any two or more members in the same locality may 
found a Temple, which shall be the name of the organiza- 



276 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

tion of followers of the Psychic Society, each and every one 
of whom shall be over twenty-one years of age. 

2. Others may be admitted by the unanimous vote of 
the members who are already in the Temple; and this 
method shall be maintained throughout the growth of the 
Society in each place. 

3. No books or other literature shall be read, used, or 
referred to during a meeting of the Temple, except the 
present volume, as it contains all the information that can 
be publicly useful; and one of the chief purposes of the 
Temple is to repudiate false teachings which are current in 
books of theories. 

4. There shall be four mottoes adopted in the Temple, 
whether applied only to the name of the band of followers or 
to the building itself if ever erected; and they are as fol- 
lows: 

THE FIRST MOTTO 

ITt a /l&an Me ©ball Ibe %ivc MqMwI 

THE SECOND MOTTO 

©ball WLe /[fteet ©ut&oveD ©nes in BternftgT 

THE THIRD MOTTO 

Down Mftb beliefs, £beorg anO Speculation 

THE FOURTH MOTTO 

me Want tbe arutb 

There should be loyalty and fidelity to great principles 
shown in the meetings of the Temple. When sewerage 
runs through a palace it should first be cut off, then the halls 
cleansed, and the beauty, richness and glory of the edifice 
restored. 



• PSYCHIC TEMPLES 277 

The meaning of this suggestion may be gathered by the 
merest glance at the titles of books and publications that 
are called psychical, occult and otherwise, and that are 
abundant in every civilized country on the globe. Such 
publications have millions of readers. There is a deep- 
seated desire for the information that the titles promise; 
but the damp chill of disappointment follows an attempt 
to peruse the works. They are false, cheap in thought for 
the most part, mere pretense, speculative or theoretical. 
Many of them are sensational and what is called yellow ; 
while others are diabolical in their absolute inventions, 
wholly lacking in fact or principle. 

It is true that there are higher grade works that approach 
a scientific value; but they are also wholly speculative and 
so few in number that one hardly hears of their being read 
at all. 

The truth is wanted. 

Whoever wants les9 should not be admitted to the 
counsels of a Temple. 

There are " I believe " men and women who have read 
enough unreliable literature to smother the best library on 
earth, who are offensively positive on claims that cannot 
stand the test of the very first analysis. They are assertive 
without thought. They project into a conversation a 
rank theory and defend it to the last ditch, during which 
process all legitimate discussion comes to an end. 

They impede progress. 

The Psychic Society is not afraid of comparisons, but 
does not elect to allow its grand facts and laws to be 
placed for a moment against the untenable theories that 
are overwhelming from a numerical standpoint, but that 
are junk in the workshop of the mind. 

There is enough genuine thought in every law and every 
fact laid down in this Book of the Psychic Society to main- 
tain many hours of deep thought and consideration. There- 
fore there is no need of going outside the book itself for 



278 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

material. Discussion is helpful if it is judicious; other- 
wise it is mere dissension. 



BUILDING THE TEMPLE. 



For a few years the local association should meet from 
house to house at the call of its President who ' may be 
selected by a majority vote of the members for such term 
as they decide. He may appoint all other officers that are 
deemed necessary. 

The legal name of the association shall be " the first 

PSYCHIC TEMPLE OF " 

The last word of the name is to be the town, village or 
city where it is located. In such name the association 
shall own all its property and deposit its funds as it sees 
fit. When there are more than one Temple in a place, the 
second shall be called the second, and so on. 

A Charter shall be granted to any local Temple when 
it has not less than twenty members who have met at least 
once every three months for a year. The Charter will be 
awarded without cost by Ralston Company of Washington, 
D. C. 

Meetings may be held as often as there is a unanimous 
vote for them. 

The purpose of the meetings is primarily to fix by debate, 
discussion and exercises, the thoughts, facts and laws of the 
Book of the Psychic Society, in order to better fit a man 
or woman for this life and what follows. 

While no attempt is being made to displace the churches 
or the religious denominations, there will eventually grow 
a general desire on the part of all psychic people in and out 
of the churches to devote part of the Sabbath or Sunday 
to meetings. This statement is made here because of the 
expressed intention of leaders in all the denominations to 
give aid, support and encouragement to the Psychic Society, 



PSYCHIC TEMPLES 279 

for the reason that it appeals to the clear judgment of men 
and women in a way that cannot be disregarded. 

Talking on this subject a prominent clergyman said : "I 
am not selfish enough to oppose the Psychic Society on the 
ground that it may weaken the church. As long as I feel 
sure that it will do a greater part of the church's work in 
a more direct and effective manner than the church can 
do it herself, I am not going to oppose it." 

After the passing of years, each local Psychic Temple 
may decide to erect an edifice which will still bear the 
same name as the organization ; namely, " the first 

PSYCHIC TEMPLE OF " 

When there are funds enough for the purpose and there 
is a general desire on the part of all the local Temples, 
the Ralston Company will furnish working plans, design 
and all suggestions needed for the carrying on of the work 
graded according to the size of the building to be erected. 

The four mottoes must be prominent on the outside 
of the building, one on each side, which must face to a 
point of the compass. 

The building must face south, and over the great door- 
way must be placed the words: we want the truth; 
which everybody who enters may read. 

On either side must be placed the two mottoes which are 
in the form of inquiries. That which asks the question, 

IF A MAN DIE SHALL HE LIVE AGAIN? is to go to the 

western side of the edifice, because the west is symbolic 
of the death of the day and of the year. The sun sinks to 
rest in the west ; and the constellations that mark the months 
in the sky all set in the west. 

The east is symbolic of the resurrection, and on the 
eastern wall of the Temple the question is to be placed : 

SHALL WE MEET OUR LOVED ONES IN ETERNITY? 

On the northern end of the building, symbolic of the cold 
and chilling north, the final motto is to be set: 

DOWN WITH BELIEFS, THEORY AND SPECULATION. 




280 



CHAPTER XL. 
THE FUTURE. 

■ i ..... ....... i......„iv.,..i . . it "iT.T.Ti i . . .T. i i . ~i C.~ T ~ ~~i*-,: 



OLLING ONWARD through the years the 

life of man is unreeled. He is given his 

time and his opportunity on earth. To make 

way for others he is hurried through the days 

of youth, of maturity and of age, until at 

last he feels the instinct of death coming over 

him and he is willing to go. It is said that 

time has no value to the Creator; but time brings changes 

that pass in review before the great mind of the universe, 

and time is important. 

If it were not important, man might be allotted a greater 
span. But all too soon, and yet long enough for his 
purposes, the period is spent and one more body lies down 
to its final sleep to make room for another soul to come 
into being. 

This has been the steady procession since first the race 
began its history on the face of the globe. 
How much longer will it continue? 

In almost all ages there have been predictions of the sud- 
den ending of the world. In the last seventy years, no 
less than two hundred such claims have been made, some 
wide-spread in their effects, and others limited to a very 
small coterie. 

But the world itself will not come to an end. Its 
people will. 

The body of earth is a penalty for the wrongs that caused 
the fall of these beings out of heaven. 

While other worlds have the same elemental formation 



THE FUTURE 281 

as this planet, the beings that dwell on them are imperish- 
able; therefore they are not of the substance of the soil. 

To be made of clay is a penalty. 

To be made of clay is to be subject to every accident, 
every vicissitude of nature, every turn of the hand of 
calamity, every disease, every misfortune; and to be unable 
to combat the combination of forces that prey on humanity. 
As fast as civilization succeeds in fighting down one set 
of penalties, others arise in greater force. This can be 
seen in the medical profession. Centuries of progress have 
been made and wonderful strides taken toward the goal 
desired, which is the perfect body possessing a perfect mind, 
but there are hundreds more maladies to-day, when we 
include the subdivisions of sickness, than there were in the 
dark ages, and the death rate is growing heavier all the 
time. In the past decade there has been a fearful weaken- 
ing of the vitality of men and women and a fearful in- 
crease in the number of drug stores and doctors, showing 
the greater need of the medical profession. At the present 
rate of accumulation, there will be but one profession ten 
years from now, and that will be the physician's. 

Penalties are increasing, not by graded steadiness, but 
by leaps and bounds. The person who reads the work en- 
titled Physical Religion finds there proofs so abundant of 
this fact that he closes the covers in silence and thinks what 
it all means. 

The nitrogen is going out of the earth's atmosphere so 
fast that it will hardly be sufficient to support life for more 
than ten or twenty years, if we believe the statements put 
forth by eminent experts. It may not disappear altogether 
or in great proportion, but its loss may be sufficient to 
end life when it shall have fallen away ten per cent. It 
is well known that the vegetation now thriving on the 
globe is less than ten per cent, that which existed in a 
former era. It is merely a question of how much more 
loss can be borne without disaster to all life. 



282 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

Here are two facts: 

1. The fearful increase of weakness and the decrease of 
vitality in the human race, summoning all the resources of 
the medical profession to combat these conditions. 

2. The rapid loss of nitrogen in the air and in the vege- 
table kingdom, out of which the body is woven and all plant 
life is built. 

We are not asserting that the world will come to an end. 
We know that it will not. 

We are not asserting that the human race will be wiped 
out of existence in the next ten or twenty years. We 
know nothing about it. 

We have the following statement from the pen of one 
who is deeply engaged in the study and testing of the princi- 
ples of Psychic Telepathy: 

" Great changes are close at hand."' 

That is all that he will say. 

Any person who will contemplate the purposes and de- 
signs of life, of the making of this world, of the universe, 
and of each and all the parts that constitute the great span 
of the sky, must see something in it to warrant the assertion 
that nothing is in vain. There is a purpose in everything. 
Nothing is lost. Nothing happens by accident. 

There is no past. 

Whatever your life has been it is the eternal NOW that 
must be given your sole attention; for he who lives in this 
NOW is weaving his destiny for all time. 

Cut loose from the past. 

Begin with the present and build better than you have in 
the years that have failed. 

Be a loyal member of the Psychic Society. 

Take a pride in it, and help in every way to spread the 
vital laws of its book broadcast over all the world. 

Let us work together and make it the best, the noblest, 
the grandest organization in all the earth. 

In our membership there have been for many years some 



THE FUTURE 283 

leading clergymen from every denomination, and we refer 
to their opinions of the usefulness of this Society. 

" There is nothing in the teachings of the Psychic Society 
that in any way contradicts our own church. On the other 
hand it is certain to help us." 

" I see in the Psychic Society the methods by which greater 
good can be accomplished among mankind than in the church 
alone." 

" Its greatest merit is its exposure of the false claims of 
charlatans. Its facts and laws are the best aids to a moral 
life." 

" It is founded on the truth, for which reason I am advo- 
cating the spread of the Psychic Society." 

" Its book is the first and only work that has reached 
definite conclusions that are stoutly proved all the way 
through." 

" I have never felt it so much a duty of my life to 
push forward any work as I now feel it incumbent on me 
to urge all right-thinking people to come to the support of 
the Psychic Society." 

" I hope to live to see the day when this fair land will 
be dotted all over with Temples great and small in which 
the followers of the Psychic Society are holding their meet 
ings." 

In these statements are represented the seven greatest re- 
ligious denominations of the civilized world. 

The future stares us in the face. 

What is to-morrow to you? 

What of the next ten years, the next twenty, or the next 
thirty ? 

Have they anything in store for you? 

Where do you seek the solution of the greatest problems 
of the universe? 

If your heart is turbulent, if your soul is restless, if your 
mind is chaotic, if your faith in God has been shaken at 
times, if the penalties of this life are misunderstood and 



284 THE PSYCHIC SOCIETY 

the sea is breaking fast around you, turn to the pages of 
this Book of the Psychic Society and read them again. 
Open the volume where you will and read on. On what- 
ever page your eyes may rest by accident, there is a vital 
truth waiting for you. Read on from that point and keep 
reading until a new light will break into the mind. 

This book is psychic. 

It is the creation of the psychic power that brings facts 
to all who long for them. Read it again and again until 
you feel that it is pouring a flood of light into your very 
being. 

When you have taken it from the first pages down 
through to the very lines now before you, not omitting 
a word, and have repeated the perusal again and again until 
the light comes at last, then you will have taken the first 
great step toward eternity. 

Why? 

Because the words of this book are truths such as have 
never before been given to humanity, and they will bring 
with them to you their full measure of blessing as they are 
understood. 

Try this advice and note the magnificent result. 

As the system of Psychic Telepathy shines with the daz- 
zling splendor of the transcendant glories beyond, so the 
new light that breaks upon your life through the pages of 
this present book will open to you a fairer landscape on 
earth. 

Let us make the Psychic Society worthy of the best hopes 
of humanity. 



285 



BUSINESS FORMS 



Most persons desire to have forms made ready for their 
use, in order to avoid errors in transacting business. For 
the purpose of aiding them, we have appended a number 
of such forms as will be most convenient. 

Use one form only. Read the last five chapters of the 
present book, and decide which method you will adopt. 
Then select one of the following forms, and copy that ; 
paying no attention to the others. 

Address the order to Ralston Company, Washington, D. 
C. Then add the words of whichever form you decide to 
use. 

FORM ONE. — I desire to become a Member of the 
Psychic Society in the following rank: (State whether 
Reader-Member, Student, or Investigator.) I will pay my 

dues for the full period of ten years at the rate of 

(State whether you will pay fifty cents per month, 

or one dollar every two months, or six dollars annually.) 

FORM TWO. — I desire to pay my dues for the full 
ten years all in advance; and I enclose sixty dollars for the 
same, with the understanding that I may have possession 
at once of the books of all four Sections. 

FORM THREE. — It is my intention to secure thirty 
persons to enter the Shaftesbury Society at two dollars 
each, in order that I may become absolute owner of all 
the Sections, and also receive the greater work of Psychic 
Telepathy in case it shall be published. I understand that 
if the thirty persons so obtained are genuinely interested in 
the work of the Society, I am to receive a receipt in full 
for the ten years' dues, and that I am not to make any pay- 
ment for the same. 



286 BUSINESS FORMS 

FORM FOUR. — I hereby enclose the sum of sixty 
dollars with which to pay in full my ten years' dues as a 
Member of the Psychic Society; but I reserve the right to 
draw on Ralston Company from time to time for copies of 
the Book of the Psychic Society until I have received a 
total number of thirty; and for every such copy I will find 
some person to enter the Shaftesbury Society, thus giving 
me the right to absolute ownership of all the four Sections, 
and also of the great system of Psychic Telepathy in case 
it is ever published. 



The above forms cover all the ground required. You 
can use any one of them and copy the words without varia- 
tion; adding your name and full address at the end. 

Ralston Company is the publishing house of the Psychic 
Society and of the Shaftesbury Society; and attends to all 
business matters for them. No communication will receive 
attention unless it is addressed merely to 

Ralston Company, Washington, D. C. 
1327 to 1329 Fifteenth St. 



COST OF CARRIAGE. 

Ralston Company pays the cost of sending the foregoing 
works under the following conditions: 

1. When the person who is to own the Book of the Psy- 
chic Society applies for the same of his own accord, and 
is not to receive the same as a gift from a Member, the 
carriage will be paid by Ralston Company. 

2. When the ten years' dues are all paid at once under 
form two, the carriage of all the Sections will be paid by 
Ralston Company. 

3. In all other cases the cost of sending must be paid 



BUSINESS FORMS 287 

by the person ordering; and the following sums must be 
added to the regular prices of the works: Book of the 
Psychic Society, 15 cents. — The First Section, 25 cents. — 
The Second Section, 32 cents. — The Third Section, 35 
cents. — The Fourth Section, 45 cents. 



PSYCHIC NUMBERS. 



Any Member of the Psychic Society who desires to invite 
friends, acquaintances, or even strangers to enter the Shaftes- 
bury Society, may send to Ralston Company for Invitations 
to use for such purpose, and they will be forwarded free 
of all expense to such Member. 



All orders and letters 
should be addressed to 

RALSTON COMPANY 

1327 to 1329 Fifteenth St., 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 



INDEX 



289 



CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 



TITLES OF CHAPTERS 

Page 
- The Psychic Society 11 



— Sources of Help 14 

— Investigating Stories 21 

— Nature of Sounds 25 

— Ghostly Sounds 29 

— Ghostly Violence 33 

— Pre-mortem Compacts. 39 

— Premonitions 46 

• Downfall of Spiritualism 54 



63 
78 
83 
89 
90 



— The Soul in Passage 

— Breaking Through 

-On the Threshold 

— The Unseen Powers 

— God 

— Heaven 92 

— Religion 97 

— Inspiration 99 

- Genius 105 

— Universal Magnetism 106 



290 

Page 

CHAPTER 20. — Psychic Telepathy no 

CHAPTER 2 1 . — Intuition 116 

CHAPTER 22. — Instinct 121 

CHAPTER 23. — Hypnotism 123 

CHAPTER 24. — Superstition 130 

CHAPTER 25. — The Demons 134 

CHAPTER 26. — The Dumping Ground 142 

CHAPTER 27. — Unseen Funds 150 

CHAPTER 28.— Double Life 165 

CHAPTER 29. — Meaning of Birth 175 

CHAPTER 30.— Parentage 184 

CHAPTER 31. — Getting Free 192 

CHAPTER 32. — After Death 201 

CHAPTER ^^. — Stepping Stones , 210 

CHAPTER 34. — Whirling Through Space 224 

CHAPTER 35. — Other Worlds than Ours. . . . 233 

CHAPTER 36. — Plan of Organization 239 

CHAPTER 37. — Psychic Members 245 

CHAPTER 38.— The Great Sections 259 

CHAPTER 39. — Psychic Temples 275 

CHAPTER 40.— The Future 280 



291 



INDEX OF PSYCHIC LAWS 

Note. — The many LAWS set forth in this volume are so 
important that the reader should have easy access to them. 
This can be done only by placing them in their order in a 
complete index; and, for this reason, they are presented in one 
group at this part of the book. 

LAW i. — God is a multiple being Page 90 

LAW 2. — Nature is a conscious personality 
knowing humanity in its smallest 
and its greatest needs Page 91 

LAW 3. — The product of Nature is humanity 
with its physical and its psychic pos- 
sibilities Page 91 

LAW 4. — Nothing is lost, wasted, or in vain. . Page 92 

LAW 5. — Ether fills all occupied space in the 

sky Page 93 

LAW 6. — Light is an impulse that vibrates 
the ether throughout all the occupied 
realms of the sky Page 93 

LAW 7. — A psychic impulse travels faster than 

a wave of light Page 93 

LAW 8. — Light is material Page 93 

LAW 9. — Every world in the sky is the abode 

of created beings Page 94 

LAW 10. — Beautiful zuorlds are the abodes and 

visiting places of the psychic body . . Page 95 

LAW II. — Heaven includes all the universe be- 
yond the earth Page 96 

LAW 12. — The lower the grade of telepathy 

the more obscure it is Page 115 

LAW 13. — Earth is hell Page 135 

LAW 14. — All created beings have been en- 
doived with the freedom to choose 
their own fates and destined 
careers Page 135 

LAW 15. — The earth is the dumping ground 

of the universe Page 138 

LAW 16. — A soul once created is immortal. . . Page 139 

LAW 17. — The earth began as a rejected rock 
world, and has evolved its own prog- 
ress until it was fit for the physical 
existence of the demons Page 139 



292 

LAW 18. — Physical life is the union of matter 

with the soul Page 140 

LAW 19. — There is a universal fund of mind 

that surrounds the earth Page 150 

LAW 20. — The earth is surrounded with a uni- 
versal fund of demon life Page 153 

LAW 21. — Demons co-exist with all earthly 

matter and life Page 158 

LAW 22. — Crime, dishonesty, insanity and sui- 
cide are instigated by the demons . . Page 160 

LAW 23. — All life is divided into two parts, 

physical and psychic Page 165 

LAW 24. — There are two kinds of interpreta- 
tion, the physical and the psychic. . . Page 166 

LAW 25. — The physical mind cannot interpret 

the thoughts of the pyschic mind. . . Page 167 

LAW 26. — In the psychic world all thoughts, 
feelings and purposes are an open 
book Page 172 

LAW 27. — The psychic mind knows all the 

thoughts of the physical mind Page 174 

LAW 28. — The fund of life out of which a 

person is born is general Page 176 

LAW 29. — The fund of life consists of every 

kind of demon nature Page 178 

LAW 30. — Life drawn from the universal fund 
through criminals should be kept 
from parentage Page 187 

LAW 31. — All persons that are born of honest 
parentage transform demons into hu- 
man beings for whom there is hope. Page 190 

LAW 32. — Every life that dies in earth passes 

into the fund of demon existence. . Page 192 

LAW 33. — Re-born lives are not identical with 

those that died in earth Page 192 

LAW 34. — A person dies in earth who is not 
freed from demon life during the 
period of natural existence in the 
flesh Page 193 

LAW 35. — There are tzvo kinds oL death: the 

physical and the psychic Page 193 

LAW 36. — The immortal being does not die . . . Page 194 



293 

LAW 37. — Matter dissolves, but life lives for- 
ever Page 195 

LAW 38. — Death is necessary in order to free 
the soul and to give it opportunity 
to seek immortality Page 195 

LAW 39. — Every person who enters the psychic 
world while on earth becomes im- 
mortal Page 195 

LAW 40. — The psychic life begins on earth . . . Page 196 

LAW 41. — As the psychic life is included in 
earthly existence, it can be entered 
only during life on earth Page 199 

LAW 42. — After death there is no individual 

life except in the psychic world. . . . Page 201 

LAW 43. — Unseen life is either demon or 

psychic Page 202 

LAW 44. — // is impossible for the soul in the 
psychic world to communicate with 
human beings Page 203 

LAW 45. — The psychic body, once free, leaves 

earth, never to know it again Page 204 

LAW 46. — Every earthly life is a complete ex- 
istence with the full possibilities of 
immortality Page 204 

LAW 47« — Suicides and criminals are sent back 
to the demon fund and enter into 
the hideous forms of life that hover 
about the earth Page 206 

LAW 48. — When the opportunity for parentage 
ceases, all unborn demons will re- 
main forever shut out of the 
psychic world Page 209 

LAW 49. — Enough time must elapse between 
the decision and the first step in the 
psychic life on one hand, and the 
death of the body on the other hand, 
to enable the individual to establish 
on earth a type of heaven Page 212 

LAW 50. — There is no past Page 212 

LAW 51. — Every world in the sky is made of 
the same material of which the earth 
is composed Page 270 



294 



GENERAL INDEX 




Page 

I^MPLE means at command 12 

Awful ghosts 22 

An apparently probable account 23 

Air as a mass 26 

Advanced investigation 58 

Amazing knowledge that comes from instinct 101 

A remarkable case 104 

All things are related 109 

Alone with genius 129 

All life is free 135 

Accumulated murders 146 

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust 176 

After death 201 

Advancement under the rules 245 

Advancement step by step 254 

Advantages of membership 256 

Advanced magnetism 264 

Book of personal magnetism 17 

Body of water 25 

Breaking through 78 

Birds and lower forms of life 122 

Beings in the orbs beyond 144 

Birth and its meaning 175 

Boundless deeps of life 193 

Better life must begin on earth 199 

Building the temple 278 

Business forms 285 

Conservative investigators 16 

Carrying waves of sound 26 

Consonants as interruptions 27 



295 

Page 

Confessions in criminology 30 

Cold hand down the back 34 

Child lifted out of bed 35 

Conscious personality of nature 91 

Causes of religion 97 

Cultivating the power of genius 105 

Catalepsy among great men . 128 

Cruel tortures in civilized America 147 

Cell life and intelligence 151 

Convolutions of the brain at work 173 

Capital punishment 187 

Confirmed and incurable criminals 188 

Crimes and deceit 219 

Cost of membership 252 

Cost of transportation 286 

Densest solids 26 

Drum of the ear 28 

Deficient brain-cells 28 

Dreams are not evidence 42 

Downfall of spiritualism 54 

Direction of the passing soul 67 

Double function of the ether waves 80 

Double nature of all powers 87 

Definition of religion 98 

Developing the psychic powers 103 

Dull sermons and absent minds 114 

Death avoided by intuition 120 

Demons as powers 134 

Diabolical fiends 136 

Dumping ground for demons 139 

Discarded souls 144 

Debauchery . 149 

Drunken dementia 156 

Devils that are real 160 



2g6 

Page 

Double life 165 

Death is necessary 195 

Duties of life 214 

Discovery of a new world 244 

Dues, fees and costs 255 

Everything hollow and porous 26 

Ether vibration 26 

Extraordinary cases of materialization 55 

Eastward passage of the soul 69 

Ether and space 93 

Extent of heaven 96 

Examples of inspiration 102 

Eating the dead 177 

Earth will be forgotten 203 

Earthly life must be loved 221 

End of human life 282 

First step 7 

Five senses 8 

First division 9 

Fair trial for spiritualism 13 

Foundation principles of great books 20 

Fore-warnings ,. ., 47 

Fortune-tellers 48 

Forty records of visions 52 

Faith and hope 98 

Facts that come through inspiration 100 

Fallen souls and moral power 149 

Funds that are unseen 150 

Fevered brains 154 

Final doom approaching 208 

First great section 259 

Fourth great section 265 

Forms to use 285 



297 

Page. 

Ghosts make no sounds 15 

Gelatin illustration 25 

Ghostly violence 33 

Gauze masks in materializations 56 

Gravity and magnetism 79 

God 90 

Genius as a power 105 

Getting Satan out of the way 160 

Great geniuses and their powers 1 70 

Gambling as a debasing crime 207 

Great changes at hand 209 

Higher Magnetism 17 

How magnetism operates 108 

Hypnotism as a power 123 

Hell on earth 135 

Human savagery 147 

Horrible shapes have a basis in fact 158 

Humanity comes from the lap of earth 176 

Heredity and memory 181 

Honest parentage 190 

Heaven must begin on earth 214 

Heaven in the heart 216 

Honesty as the only test 217 

Inventors are helped 17 

Investigating stories 21 

Ideas of heaven 92 

Inspiration as a power 99 

Instinct as a power 100 

Increasing the great powers 103 

Intuition as a power 116 

Intelligence in matter 150 

Images that are not imaginary 154 

Interpretations of thought 166 



2Q8 

Page 

Improvement all along the ages 185 

Investigations 240 

Investigators in the Psychic Society 250 

Journeys through space 224 

Killing of the engine-driver 49 

Knowledge of God 91 

Knowledge of human minds 173 

Larynx tones 27 

Leadership of genuine mediums 37 

Luminous phenomena 55 

Law greater than fact 88 

Low grades of intelligence 131 

Love, peace and religion 142 

Lesser crimes universal 146 

Mark of wisdom 1 1 

Misleading the public 21 

Molecules in the air 27 

Motion all about us 29 

Murderer and the merchant 30 

Manifestations of souls in passage 64 

Magnetism as an awakening power 85 

Microscope confused 95 

Many kinds of magnetism 107 

Mobs and self-hypnotism 126 

Modern barbarism in America 137 

Mohammedan religion 147 

Mobs in civilized America 147 

Magnified visions in the brain 157 

Milton and Shakespeare 159 

Mystery in life of Shakespeare 171 

Monstrosities in animal life 180 

Memory before birth 181 



299 

Page 

Memory of a prior generation 182 

Mind is not substance 206 

Members of the Society 245 

Membership fees , 252 

Magnetism Club 263 

Magnetism of the universe 266 

Materials of all worlds 270 

No belief at first in telepathy 12 

New science 13 

Nature of sounds 25 

Nerves employed in ghostly sounds 29 

Normal brain hears no abnormal sounds 30 

Notice of membership 252 

Nitrogen disappearing 282 

Origin of the X-rays 17 

Others' thoughts 168 

Origin of this world 23 1 

Organization of the Psychic Society 239 

Personal note 4 

Perfected organization 7 

Psychic Society 7 

Plan 8 

Proofs abundant 8 

Physical glimpses 8 

Power of magnetism 18 

Paralyzed nerves 33 

Pre-mortem compacts 39 

Premonitions 46 

Phenomena of passing souls 72 

Power to penetrate all solids 107 

Personal magnetism as a power 108 

Psychic telepathy no 

Powers of instinct 121 



300 

Page 

Paradise lost 134 

Penalties by the million 148 

Proofs of two kinds of life 165 

Physical meanings 166 

Presentiments that are vague , 169 

Powers compared 169 

Parentage of criminals 187 

Prejudice and fixed beliefs 243 

Psychic members 245 

Psychic telepathy 269 

Psychic temples 275 

Qualifications of the medium 60 

Readers 7 

Relation of brain to sound 27 

Round and flat columns of air 28 

Ringing a bell 30 

Rappings on the mantel-piece 61 

Roses from the dead 74 

Religion as an inborn power 97 

Results of self-hypnotism 125 

Repentance on death-bed useless 213 

Resolutions in the beginning 241 

Readers in the Psychic Society 245 

Rules for advancement 245 

Rules for investigators 250 

Rules for reaching the sections 254 

Statement by committee 6 

Shaftesbury Society 7 

Subsequent conversion 1 1 

Statement of case. 13 

Sources of help 14 

Sayings of Shaftesbury 14 

Seeming facts may be unreliable 14 



3oi 

Page 
Supernatural transactions are impossible 15 

Substance of the soul 18 

Sifting stories 21 

Sunday paper stories 21 

Sample case of newspaper falsehood 22 

Spoken word 27 

Self-hypnotism and suggestions 36 

Strong cases of agreements 44 

Supreme court weaknesses 59 

Slate-writing 60 

Souls in passage 63 

Sub-conscious thought and the psychic mind 80 

Sight of the mind 83 

Sex nature 91 

Speed of light 94 

Study of Mars 95 

Seasons and habits of planets 96 

Study of the forces of instinct 100 

Summer hotel experience 112 

Sleep of hypnotism 123 

Superstition as a power 130 

Superstition and ignorance 132 

Selfishness 149 

Snakes and savage beasts ^56 

Skull of man laid bare 173 

Suicides become hideous demons 208 

Simple methods of living necessary 215 

Shaftesbury Society 244 

Students of the Psychic Society 247 

Success in life 249 

Shaftesbury Psychic Society 257 

Sections described 259 

Second great section 262 

The Psychic Society 1 1 



302 

Page 

Test cases 15 

Two sources of help 17 

True accounts 21 

Trickery in seances 55 

Tieing the hands and legs 56 

The ball of light that grew 57 

Telepathy as a double function 87 

Two minds in every human being in 

Thoughts that leap from brain to brain 112 

Tortures in the dark ages and to-day 136 

Touch and sight 166 

Thoughts spoken and written 166 

The first humanity 184 

Two kinds of unseen life 202 

The only hope of immortality 214 

Type of heaven on earth 214 

Three steps in the Shaftesbury Society 258 

Transference of thought 260 

Third great section 264 

Temples of the Psychic Society 275 

The Four Mottoes 276 

Temple Mottoes 276 

Teachings of the Psychic Society 284 

Universe is physical 8 

Unseen powers and what they are 89 

Universal magnetism 106 

Union of matter with soul life 140 

Universal magnetism studies 266 

Verdict of scores of men. 12 

Vibration of molecules 26 

Vibrations of air 26 

Vowels and consonants 27 

Vocal cords and sound 28 



3°3 

Page 

Visions as premonitions 51 

Voices as premonitions 52 

Vague and indefinite forebodings 53 

Verified cases of visions 68 

Wrong conclusions 16 

Wireless telegraphy 18 

Waves of the ocean 25 

Woman alone in a house at night 30 

Weak processes of reasoning 58 

Women and men who use intuition 118 

Woman's management of man's affairs 118 

Wickedness of Chicago 138 

Words used in thoughts 167 

Who may become members of the Psychic Society. . . . 245 




Ube :£nt> 



3*g 






